Power Rangers: Wraith
by dtm666
Summary: Vengeful Varox threaten to destroy humanity. And in the midst of this, an ancient weapon capable of destroying entire planets is unleashed on an unsuspecting universe. COMPLETED. R
1. Part 1 of 14

POWER RANGERS: WRAITH (Formerly The Weapon) - Part 1 of 14  
Written by DTM666

Disclaimer: The author of this piece would like to state that 90% of the characters featured here are properties of BVS Entertainment Inc and not that of the author. 10% of the characters featured here are original creations of the author.  
Also, the author understands that this piece automatically negates events that occur any and all PR incarnations that occur after Power Rangers Wild Force; hence no Dino Thunder or Ninja Storm is featured here and hence Tommy is not a doctor of anything. This is an AU, so to speak. Just thought we should be clear on that.

Intro to Wraith  
Hello. Chances are you've probably either stumbled upon or even better, actually read this story many ages ago when it was first posted as _Power Rangers: The Weapon_. _Power Rangers: Wraith_ is essentially the Director's Cut of that particular story. It's basically a moderate retooling with several scenes edited, added, changed around, or dropped entirely. There were so many edits and additions that needed to be done that the story had to be extended from its original twelve chapters to fourteen, simply because there's a certain limit I impose on myself for the length of each chapter.

Despite its flaws, I felt happy with the end result of _The Weapon_ and thought it was a good first effort at PR fanfic writing (that I actually finished up.) As time and perspective passed by, I thought that it could have used a bit of a reshuffling in terms of material. So this is the end result.

Even if you have already read this, I urge you to give it another read, as there are some new things added here and there. It's not a pure rewrite, but I hope the new revision will make this a better read than originally conceived. Reviews & constructive criticisms are always welcomed. Enjoy.

--- 

Terran Year - 2004 A.D.

Gorah Khan. The homeworld of the Machine Empire. An empire run by machines.

Once, it was a prosperous Empire before it was ruled by a corrupted regime who veered its soldiers in an everlasting war against organics. Once, it was ruled by Mondo, the most ruthless of all the machines within the Empire. Once, it was the most feared political power that remained a constant threat to both the forces of good and the United Alliance of Evil.

Now it was a crumbling Empire where the leadership had been in dispute ever since Mondo was forcibly removed from power after his failure to conquer planet Earth and his subsequent demise in the Alliance Wars. While most recognized former Mondo rival Aradon as the true Emperor, there were those who supported former Mondo general named Venjix, who had orchestrated the war that pitted the Empire against the Varox Contingency of bounty hunters. The war lasted several years before Aradon-led fleets ultimately destroyed every single Varox colony, practically making the Varox extinct.

This planet had not seen sunlight for quite some time. The buildings of Gorah Khan, once of clean, sleek construction, are now charred wreckage of burnt steel and molten lava. The mines and factories spew out flames and light-covering smokes that fill the already-red skies. Within these massive dumps, cogs and other heavy robots deal with the reconstruction and salvage of their battered world, which was crippled after the final battle with the Varox months ago. It resulted in the loss of some seventy million troops and widespread damage to all the cities; the result of a Varox genocide attack that nearly crippled the Empire were it not for the sudden unification of all political factions towards one common cause: to exterminate the Varox threat.

In the sky, a light beam cut through the black clouds and struck the charred surface of Gorah Khan. The Cogs observed this light as it grew brighter and brighter. The beam managed to tear the clouds apart, letting sunlight through for the first time in months. Emanating the beam was a strange sort of battleship; practically round in shape, but had an organic feel to it. The beam continued to glow brighter every second. The smaller Cog looked in awe and looked down at the ground, realizing what was going on; the mysterious object was cutting through the planet. 

Before panic could occur, the scenery fell part. Giant chunks of the planet flew away as the beam intensified. Debris that was laying around started to levitate from what was left of a ground. A bright flash covered the planet's volume and when the light cleared, all that was left of Gorah Khan was several chunks of asteroids and metal debris. The battleship flew through the planet remains, ramming through asteroids with hardly a dent or scratch. 

--- 

Andros peeked out the porthole of his personal chamber on board the Astro Megaship Mark-II, now in her second year of operation. He viewed the various stars and nebula that the ship was passing through. He found it hard to believe that all this could have been wiped out had Venjix succeeded in acquiring the massive zord, a zord that took a long time to dig out. Of course, if all the ship's voyagers hadn't been quiet for the past year or two, he would probably be thinking the same thing about some other major threat encountered. Along with TJ, Zhane, and the faithful robot, Alpha-7, Andros had not encounter any major disturbances. Nor did he have any reason to, as things have been relatively peaceful for the most part.

So he sat by his desk and took care of some paperwork, particularly things concerning his upcoming marriage to Ashley Hammond, a former Yellow Ranger now living on KO-35 working as an architect and part-time engineer aboard the J9 orbital shipyard orbiting KO-35's furthest moon. Such details were often a pain for Andros to deal with, but he would gladly take them with open arms. When the necessary paperwork was taken care of, Andros lied down on his bunker and proceeded to fall asleep, something he needed these past few days.

About an hour later, the collision alarm sounded and the ship rocked hard, almost tossing the sleeping Andros off the bunker. Andros woke up almost instantly and proceeded to the bridge while putting on his uniform jacket. He was caught off-guard when the ship shook again, harder than before. He made his way to the bridge, where Zhane was furiously attempting to keep the ship in balance.

"What happened?" asked Andros as he dashed to a nearby console.

"We got hit by a massive shockwave three sectors from here." Zhane said, straining to maintain stable control of the ship, "TJ's in the engine room trying to keep the power distributors from blowing out."

Another hard impact rocked the ship that instantly knocked the two Kerovans to the ground. The bridge lights soon dimmed down, replaced with hard red lights that covered the bridge. Andros made it back to his feet and quickly took control of the helm while trying to bring up a picture on the main viewer. Even during all this, the ship still shook, but over the next minute, slowly settled until it was gone.

Zhane managed back to the navigation station and raised the Megaship's shields. He fiddle with a few console controls before the lights went back to normal. Fumes of gas filled the bridge, but was quickly cleared up thanks to the ventilation system. Andros brought the main viewer onscreen and checked the sensors as TJ, the former Blue Space/current Red Turbo Ranger, walked onto the bridge.

"Everything down below seems fine." TJ said anxiously. "Alpha is working on minor repairs to the outer hull plating, but would anyone care to tell me what the heck just happened?"

"Well, we got hit by a couple shockwaves and now we're entering an asteroid belt," said Zhane as he safely navigated the Megaship through the cluttering of space rocks to avoid further collision and damage. "I didn't think there would be an asteroid belt here." 

Andros looked at Zhane dumbfounded, "That's because there isn't supposed to be." 

"What?" the Silver Ranger seemed shocked.

"According to the starmaps," the Kerovan Red Ranger explained, "we're supposed to be passing by Gorah Khan, the Machine Homeworld. But the planet isn't in my sensors." 

Zhane looked up at the screen and looked at the navigation screen, "But that's impossible! Unless the sensors aren't tuned to this region of space." He glanced at TJ. "We've never even been this far on the old Megaship."

"Sensors are fine." Andros countered, "There's nothing but rocks."

"Could it have been Serpenterra years ago?" TJ suggested. 

Andros shook his head, "Can't be. The planet was there roughly less than an hour ago when I did our last scan." 

Zhane stood up and looked at the screen, the asteroid belt that was once a planet, "Could it be possible that there's another Serpenterra out there or something similar that we don't know about?" 

The other two looked at their blonde friend with tension. It is possible. 

---

Earth. Roughly the same day.

The main headquarters of Lightspeed Rescue organization was originally located in a Type-A Aquabase infrastructure on the coast of the Mariner Sea years ago. When the base was destroyed, construction on the new underground base sped up and eventually became the new base of operations, with head offices on the surface and a developing sky base currently under construction.

The underground headquarters had the same design aspects as the original Aquabase, but was technologically more advanced and was much more durable than the former base. Something the new commander had stressed heavily during the final stages of construction. While the base was a wonder in itself, the true marvel of technological prowess was the Situation Room, a round room with several screen displays, advanced holographic projectors, and a green, round table. Standing in front of the main viewer was the commander of Lightspeed Rescue; a typical human male in his late-twenties sporting a crew cut and goatee.

"Rangers," the commander said, "This is going to be a tough challenge for you. While you've done well on the first few missions, you're going to be facing a stiff enemy in this bounty hunter."

He turned around to face his six Lightspeed Rangers, already in morphed state. The commander paused, took the time to digest the six before him, in the new Ranger suits that was similar in design to the old Titanium Ranger suit, but without the shoulder plates. Aside from field commander Chad Lee in blue, the other five were new recruits chosen through the Ranger Initiative program which had been similar to what Captain Mitchell used to use to handpick the original candidates for the Lightspeed Ranger program.

"Your skill, determination, and heart got you this far." the commander continued, "But this isn't the typical Vypra flunkie you're used to fighting. This is a Level-5 emergency involving a suspect alien threat. Proceed with caution, as we have very little details on the Varox species other than that they're vicious fighters. Just remember to stay focused and remember your training. The city's counting on you, Rangers. And so am I."

"You can count on us, Commander Grayson." the one in Red said, "We won't let you down."

Carter Grayson, former Lightspeed Ranger, successor to retired Captain Mitchell and the new commander of Lightspeed Rescue, smiled. "I know you won't, Kip. Now get going."

The Rangers saluted and then marched out of the door. Chad began towards the door, but stopped and looked to Carter.

"Keep an eye on them, Chad." he said to the Blue Ranger, to which he replied with a grin before leaving, "Don't worry, Commander. They'll be fine with me."

---

Mariner Bay. Once a city bristling with activity. A city known for its clean beaches and monuments. A place that was once home to the Lightspeed Rescue organization that bred the first Power Ranger team designed by humans. 

Now the city lays in ruin. In the middle of the streets, a Varox bounty hunter, the last of his kind, randomly fire energy bolts that take down entire buildings and blow apart human bodies. His screams are incoherent, but his rage is directed at those he sees. In a quick instance, the Varox is shot from behind and knocked on his back. He staggers back to his feet and looks ahead to see six people in multi-colored costumes, each holding a lance with a V-shaped cannon at the end of it. The Varox recognized them to be Power Rangers, though not any he has seen. The last time the Varox had encountered Rangers was when they were working for the Machines in their hunt for the Gold Ranger. 

_No matter_, he thought to himself, _ I will accomplish the task at hand._

The Varox ran towards the six. As if realizing the enemy's next move, the one in Red pointed his pulse blaster at the creature, the others following suit. After a split-second, Chad Lee, the senior member of the six, gave the signal to fire. Six continuous streams of beams impacted the Varox's chestplate, resulting in a series of explosive impacts that sent the Varox hurling towards an automobile. A full minute has passed and the Varox did not move. 

"Is he down?" Chad asked with concern, but tried not to show it. 

"No, sir!" the Yellow one said. "He didn't blow up, sir!"

"Be careful, Kip." the Silver Ranger called out to the Red Ranger, "H-He could be faking."

The Red Ranger of the group took a small step forward. Ignoring the Silver one's warning, he proceeded to approach the fallen Varox, who looks unconscious. The Ranger turned towards the others and gave a thumbs up, which calmed his friends. All of a sudden, the Ranger heard a beeping sound coming from the Varox. He turned and looked down at the corpse, seeing that it was glowing. Electrical surges pulsated from the corpse and the Ranger ran. 

"RUN!" he ordered with a hint of panic in his voice. 

The Rangers ran from the corpse, but the next thing they saw was nothing but a white light that enveloped the surroundings. The force of the blast sent the Rangers flying and proceeding to cause nearby buildings to crumble and fall. Multiple explosions were heard, screams of panicked people were evident, but another loud bang would be heard, along with another light...

To be continued...


	2. Part 2 of 14

POWER RANGERS: WRAITH (Formerly The Weapon) - Part 2 of 14  
Written by DTM666

Disclaimer: The author of this piece would like to state that 90% of the characters featured here are properties of BVS Entertainment Inc and not that of the author. 10% of the characters featured here are original creations of the author.  
Also, the author understands that this piece automatically negates events that occur any and all PR incarnations that occur after Power Rangers Wild Force; hence no Dino Thunder or Ninja Storm is featured here and hence Tommy is not a doctor of anything. This is an AU, so to speak. Just thought we should be clear on that.

--- 

The hidden Control Center that was developed is the current headquarters of one Thomas Oliver, who now looks over the network of activity through advanced technology that seemed to have originated on Eltare. The chamber hasn't changed much in the past seven years since he stumbled across it. It was still advanced despite its age. It consisted of nothing more than three chambers; the main Mission center that held all the intergalactic scanners and communications systems, an equipment room, and a training area capable of creating various holographic opponents at various skill levels. 

Although he is not exactly fond of underground bases, Thomas was glad that it was conveniently built under the 20 acres of land that he happened to own, where he eventually built a small house. With the exception of the Black Matter and Serpenterra missions, he has not kept in touch with many of his friends. Some would say he was almost more seclusive than William Cranston, the original Blue Ranger who hadn't been seen much since his return from Aquitar years back. However, the one person he had kept in touch with frequently, the Kerovan named Andros, was a man who became a right-hand man. 

On the massive viewer, Thomas observed what happened in Mariner Bay through the monitor in his control center. Through special technology, he had gained access to the receiving signal of the Red Ranger of the team fighting the Varox bounty hunter. He watched with great interest as the Rangers downed the Varox and as the Red Ranger approached the Varox to confirm his death. Then he witness a build-up of energy before the screen went blank.

Thomas worked the controls to regain the picture, but couldn't access the Red Ranger's signal. In fact, none of the Rangers' signals were active, so he had the computer access the LSS (Lightspeed Satellite System) so that he could get a clear view of the city. When he gained access, he would witness the city of Mariner Bay for a split second before it became engulfed in blinding white light.

He could not believe his eyes. The Varox were not known to be commit suicide, but even so, they're necessarily known to cause a destructive blast upon death. Thomas worked the LSS controls so he'd get a good look at the ground of the city, but he couldn't see anything due to the heavy smoke that obscured its vision. When the smoke cleared, Thomas' jaw almost dropped as the images showed a good portion of the city was literally blown to pieces. Not one building in the surrounding area was left standing; only rubble filled the streets and the rotting human corpses that weren't buried in the rubble... well, let's just say they don't look appealing now. 

Disgusted at the sight of the ruined city, Thomas turned off the monitor and slumped into his seat, burying his face in his hands. He mourned for those lost, then looked up and realized if the Rangers fighting the Varox survived... of course not, he thought to himself, no one could survive a blast like that... not even a Power Ranger... 

--- 

It has been two years since Cole Evans joined with nine veteran Red Rangers in the mission to prevent the corrupt General Venjix from acquiring the massive warzord Serpenterra. Two years since he has learned of others just like him, fighting for a common goal. 

Two years since the Wild Force Rangers killed the Orgs for good. 

Since then, things have changed. His friends have went separate ways; Alyssa Enrile, the completed her school studies and went on to teach at an elementary school in Stone County. Taylor Earheart, the Yellow Ranger and the veteran of the Wild Force team, re-joined the U.S. Air Force and is currently fighting a scuffle overseas, although she . Max and Danny, the respective Blue and Black Rangers, travel around the world... doing stuff. The loner, Merrick, also travels to seek answers, leaving Cole to tend with the local animal shelter that was established in Turtle Cove, his current home. 

Although he misses his days as a Power Ranger, he is glad that he can rest easy. He can usually tell himself that all is well, since Earth hasn't had much of a major incident in two years. That is, until recently.

Although it wasn't comparable to a hydrogen explosion, the blast was big enough to be seen from Turtle Cove. On the roof of the animal shelter, Cole observed the huge cloud of smoke emerging in the far off-distance. Being the least experienced Ranger, he didn't know the exact cause of such an explosion. Suddenly, the fact that he was no longer an active Ranger didn't comfort him one bit. Behind Cole, a pair of jet fighters flew by, apparently headed towards the wasteland, wherever it was. His view quickly returned back to the large mushroom cloud forming in the distance, not noticing someone else emerging from the steps below to greet him.

"Hey rookie." the man said, his voice heavy with remorse.

Cole quickly turned around to see the original Red Power Ranger, Jason Lee Scott. He seemed surprised by his sudden appearance.

"Hey, old-timer," Cole said nervously, "what are you doing here?"

Jason shrugged, "Enjoying the view." That was meant as a sarcastic remark, although Jason only allowed himself a half-smile that quickly faded.

"With a mushroom cloud from afar," suggested Cole, letting out a half-smile, "I doubt you can enjoy it."

"Possibly," the veteran Ranger replied, returning a smile, "but when you're doing the Power Ranger thing for as long as I have, you tend to let these things slide." That last comment caused the younger rookie to chuckle, which made Jason's smile wider... before it faded when he spoke, "but this kind of thing," he paused slightly, "you can't let slide."

Jason stood beside the rookie and stared at the smoke. It has been seventy-five minutes since the blast occurred and no one in Turtle Cove, or anywhere for that matter, seems to know what the cause of the blast was... or how much damage it has done.

Cole turned to the veteran who has been on the job since day one. He looked into his eyes to see sorrow and anger. He came with one conclusion: Jason has no idea what's going on either. That isn't much comfort for the rookie.

"I wish I could do something," the only words Cole could let out.

Jason nodded in agreement, "So do I, Cole. So do I. But we can't."

"That sucks." Cole mused, "At least you have powers. If I still had my Growl Phone with me..."

"What would you do?" Jason said, cutting Cole off, "You really can't do anything to change what happened. You'd be dead either way."

Cole slumped his head, knowing the veteran's right. Jason laid a comforting hand on the rookie's shoulder.

"Sometimes it's hard being on the sidelines, kid."

--- 

Captain Taylor Earheart, once a Yellow Wildforce Ranger, now a celebrated pilot for the U.S. Air Force. Assigned as flight leader to render aid to the new ground zero, she didn't know what to expect. Her experience in the Air Force and her two-year tour of duty as a Power Ranger didn't prepare her for the devastation that had besieged the once calm town of Mariner Bay. Over her comm system, she heard nothing that was coherent; supposedly pleas for assistance, scramble orders. It was hard to determine who was talking to who.

Using the auto-scrambler specially built by BioLab Inc. into her cockpit, Taylor concentrated on finding a spot to land while also avoiding pieces of falling debris that had been floating around the sky since the explosion. Her three wingmen were also. However, the furthest behind got hit with a small metal object and couldn't sustain control. Taylor, managing to get a clear signal, told him to drop out. The wingman, in confirmation, ejected from his fighter, which was quickly destroyed by collision with a heavier object. Taylor checked to see the ejected pilot was falling down fast, but managed to pull out his parachute in time.

She managed to send an order to her remaining wingman to survey damage in other parts of the city while she searched for any potential survivors, while watching for debris. When the other jet was out of sight, Taylor searched for a suitable landing spot. Miraculously, there was a stable platform perfect for landing. Upon making contact with the ground, Taylor leaped out of the cockpit and looked at the rain of falling building debris and the wreckage that was once Mariner Bay. 

_My God_, she thought to herself, _how could this happen?_

In all her years in both her professions as a Ranger and a pilot, she has never seen a city devastated this. Even as a veteran Air Force pilot, she couldn't bare to see many scarred and rotting corpses, laying around the wreckage of a city. Behind her, something struggled to emerge from the ruins. Taylor, having collected her bearings, turned to see who was emerging.

It was a Power Ranger, although not similar to any Ranger that she has known. She knew, possibly through the Silver Guardians, that Mariner Bay had their own set of Rangers, but she also recognized what they looked like. What was emerging from the grave was not the traditional Lightspeed Ranger that she did recognized. The Ranger, covered heavily in dust so it was hard to determine who it was, struggled to get back on his feet, but collapsed on the floor again. Taylor rushed towards him and attempted to help him...

The Ranger looked up at Taylor and soon lost consciousness. Probably dazed, she thought to herself. Feeling obligated to do so, she decided to check around for this Ranger's companions. Knowing where to look was the problem.

Thomas Oliver sat in front of the computer monitor for the past half-hour, unable to find the right words to type. He didn't know Carter Grayson much, but knew much about him, especially his recent promotion as Lightspeed Rescue's new Commander. After some thought, he began typing on the keyboard.

**From : Thomas Oliver  
To : Carter Grayson, Lightspeed Rescue  
Subject: Hoping for the best**

**Hey man. I saw what happened just a while ago. I'm sorry. I hope everything goes well with the rescue operation.**

**Your fellow Ranger, Thomas Oliver.**

He stared blankly at his message for another hour. He can't think of anything else that will comfort his friend or ease the pain because the truth is there isn't anything else to say. With great reluctance, he clicked on the Send button and then sat back, thinking of a plan of action.

In his office, Carter Grayson was frustrated. As the head of Lightspeed operations, he was faced with a lot of paperwork. Today, the paperwork came piling in more than usual. Casualty reports, damage reports, assessments, various other documents filled his desk and dressers. At times, he wished he was still on the Ranger team. This time, he wishes the new Rangers led by Chad Lee were alright. 

Things seemed hopeless as Carter checked his Outlook for more potential e-mails about scared people wondering where their family and friends are. He was courteous enough to reply with a generic reply. 

"We're doing everything we can to find any survivors," the message would say, "the best thing to do is keep your head up and pray." 

It seemed to be mostly that kind of message that filled his Inbox. Carter was just about to quit when one particular message caught his eye. This one was different from the rest. It was from Thomas Oliver, wishing him well with everything. While the message is rather short, it did lighten up Carter's spirits somewhat. Putting aside the pile of paper beside him, he opened up his email program and began typing;

**From : Carter Grayson, Lightspeed Rescue  
To : Thomas Oliver  
Subject: Problems**

**Thanks for the spirit booster, Tom. You can't imagine how much that makes me feel better.**

**Things have been really hectic this past day. The same can be said for today. It's getting to the point where I may have to get a new hard drive just to store these millions of e-mails. People worried about their loved ones, their friends... we should have been better prepared.**

**No word on the Rangers. Haven't heard from them since they fought the Varox bounty hunter causing trouble here. My guess is that he had some sort of miniature nuclear weapon that was probably responsible for the blast and... all this. That has to be a good way to start off your career as a Ranger... Christ, this is tough on me. My friend Chad was the leader, the rest of them were rookies... I hate to assume the worst case scenario, but I have to accept the fact that they're all dead... damn.**

**I have to go. Thanks again for the gesture. Carter**

A rogue planet, a world without a star to revolve around. Practically uninhabited.

In an instant, a beam cuts through the sphere. An instant after, the beam halts and the rogue world begins to shatter into pieces. Asteroids and gelatinous globs abound, a spherical battleship flies through the debris without a scratch... without a dent... a seemingly invincible, powerful machine...

TO BE CONTINUED...


	3. Part 3 of 14

POWER RANGERS: WRAITH (Formerly The Weapon) - Part 3 of 14  
Written by DTM666 

Disclaimer: The author of this piece would like to state that 90% of the characters featured here are properties of BVS Entertainment Inc and not that of the author. 10% of the characters featured here are original creations of the author.  
Also, the author understands that this piece automatically negates events that occur any and all PR incarnations that occur after Power Rangers Wild Force; hence no Dino Thunder or Ninja Storm is featured here and hence Tommy is not a doctor of anything. This is an AU, so to speak. Just thought we should be clear on that. 

Note: The uploading of this third chapter ends the streak of fast uploads for this story. At this point, I'll upload a new chapter every Wednesday. Anyway, read and review!

* * *

Cole Evans and Jason Lee Scott stood atop the roof of the Turtle Cove animal shelter, staring at the large smoke cloud emanating from afar. As much as they wanted to, they knew they couldn't do much to find out what was going on except wait for any news report or anyone associated with Lightspeed is willing to let out. 

Jason placed a hand on Cole's shoulder, trying to comfort the younger man, "We better go inside and continue with our day." he suggested. 

Both Red Rangers proceeded down the steps and into the storage area of the shelter. Cole decided to stick around and help out at the shelter while Jason left to make a few calls. 

Cole told Jason, "If you get the chance, call Tommy." 

Jason seemed surprised by this, "Why?" 

"Well," the Wild Force Ranger began, "didn't he mention that he had some sort of command center someplace under his house?" 

Jason smiled and nodded at the rookie's thought. Considering his "bro" had a control center under his house, it's possible he knows something about the blast. Saying his good-byes with Cole, he promptly got on his motorcycle and rode to his friend...

* * *

The Blue Lightspeed Power Ranger's last known visual was the Red Ranger running from the Varox corpse. Soon after, a white light illuminated and then everything went black.

Upon regaining consciousness, he found himself laying near a jet with the markings "Yellow Eagle" on it. He stood up and say its pilot, Taylor. "Thanks" was the only thing he could come up with it.

Taylor heard the Ranger and rushed to him. "You shouldn't push yourself," she advised, "you were buried under several tons of rubble." She was exaggerating of course, but the Ranger sat down slowly nonetheless.

"You must be Chad Lee," Taylor stated bluntly, "the first Blue Ranger from Lightspeed Rescue."

"Actually the only Blue Ranger," the Ranger nodded, confirming his identity, "but yeah. That's me. And you are?"

"I'm Taylor Earheart, Air force Captain," the former Yellow Wild Force Ranger told him, "I used to be a Ranger."

Chad smiled at that remark, "You're retired?"

"I guess you could say that." she answered, smiling back.

"Smart move." he spat sarcastically.

The two shared a small giggle at that remark. Chad soon got serious again, "Did you find the other Rangers?"

Taylor shook her head slowly in disappointment. Chad looked down, feeling sad. Somehow, he believes he is to blame. Taylor couldn't do much but offer a warm hug, to which Chad accepted.

"We'll find them," Taylor said, trying to comfort the distraught Ranger. But even she is uncertain of that statement.

* * *

**From : Commander Carter Grayson, Lightspeed Rescue  
To : Admiral Gordon Harris, Lightspeed Task Force  
Subject : Reinforcements Requested**

**Admiral Harris, I am sending you this e-mail because all other avenues of communication has been severed by the incident involving the bounty hunter and the Lightspeed Rescue Rangers. I formally request the assistance of Lightspeed Task Force to aid in salvage and rescue operations. I understand that is not the primary focus of the division, but I do not see any other way.**

**I anxiously await your answer.**

**Carter Grayson, Commander  
Lightspeed Rescue**

Gordon Harris sat in his office in the main headquarters of the newly established Lightspeed Task Force, an organization which was founded by former Captain William Mitchell to handle missions that Lightspeed Rescue was not equipped for. He read the e-mail sent by Commander Grayson about a request for assistance, received over an hour ago.

Harris, a grey-haired gentleman in his mid-40s, pressed a button on his intercom system. A minute later, the door opened to let in a younger man in camouflage gear enter. He saluted the admiral, as it is with any military organization.

"As you were," Harris told the soldier, "have a seat."

The soldier sat down slowly. Harris handed the soldier a green binder with the Lightspeed emblem on the front cover. The emblem was the tradition one seen in Lightspeed Rescue, except the usually blue icon within the circle is red and the circle is orange in tone. The soldier opened up the binder to several text, diagrams, and other notes.

"That's all the statistics concerning the Mariner Bay incident gathered through our networks," Harris explained as the soldier looked through the pages of the document, "most of what you're seeing is speculation, theories, anything that could be a possible scenario."

The soldier looked up at the admiral. "Anything we DO know, sir?"

Harris nodded, "According to Lightspeed Intelligence, there was a sudden surge within the bounty hunter the Rangers were fighting just prior to the explosion." A slight pause, the soldier stiffened as Harris continued, "the surge went off a few seconds after the hunter in question was slain by the Rangers."

"With all due respect, sir," the soldier interrupted, "that's common knowledge within Lightspeed."

Harris leaned closer to the soldier to whisper in his ear, "There is reason to believe that there is another one of those bounty hunters loose."

The soldier stood up slowly, unable to understand. "Another one?" he asked.

Harris nodded, "Also within that document was reports of a two-man aircraft that was uncovered in the Amazon just three weeks ago."

The soldier flipped through the pages to see some photographs, concept drawings of an alien spacecraft. As the admiral stated, there were two seats within the main cockpit of the craft. Further in the document showed two empty chambers under the nose of the aircraft, presumably where the power source of the ship was.

"I assume that whatever used to be in here," the soldier stated, "was used as the 'bomb' in question."

Harris nodded gravely.

The soldier placed the binder on Harris' desk and stood straight, "What are your orders, Admiral?"

Harris opened his desk drawer and pulled out a blue folder, no markings on the cover. He passed it on to the soldier, who accepted it.

"I want you to form two teams," Harris said, "one team will co-ordinate with Lightspeed Rescue to assist in their operations. The other team will seek out the other bounty hunter and stop him from destroying anything."

"But Admiral," the soldier asked with curiosity, "how will we stop him without forcing him to blow himself up?"

Admiral Harris slumped on his chair. By that reaction, the soldier got his answer, somewhat. He saluted and left the office. Harris stared at the binder. His soldier brought up an interesting point; how can a menace like be stopped? With much going through his mind, he decided to respond to Commander Grayson's request and began typing:

**From : Admiral Gordon Harris, Lightspeed Task Force  
To : Commander Carter Grayson, Lightspeed Rescue  
Subject : Request Granted**

**Commander Grayson. I have reviewed your request for assistance and have granted it. Reinforcements should be arriving tonight. Good luck.**

**Gordon Harris, Admiral  
Lightspeed Task Force**

* * *

Cole Evans woke up the next day in the basement of the animal shelter (he's been living there since his Wild Force campaign ended). He turned on the television set and tuned to the News Network, hoping to see if more information on the blast was found. Another live news report aired, not on Mariner Bay. Cole read the byline displayed on the bottom of the screen.

OMINOUS SPACE CRAFT DESTROY ROGUE PLANET

"Oh no," Cole said to no one in particular. His first instinct was to call Jason at his house.

"Hello?" Jason answered, as if he woke up just now.

Cole summed up the news report with a single phrase that seemed appropriate, "We have another problem."

"What do you mean 'we have another problem'?" Jason Lee Scott confusedly asked over the phone.

Cole stared at the news report on the television set. The report concerning the destruction of a rogue planet thanks to a space craft was certainly a problem. It's a little far-fetched, especially since the only true planet-killer ever conceived was destroyed; Cole personally saw to that. Yet here was a newscaster informing us of a rogue planet's destruction.

"Are you watching the news on Channel 52?" he asked the original Red Ranger.

"Yeah," responded Jason, although his tone wasn't serious. In fact, he seemed rather amused and let out a laugh.

"What's so funny?" Cole asked, curious as to the laughter on the other side. Then he realized what the joke was: the "news report" was fake. The "broadcast" was actually a low-budget science-fiction movie. Adding insult to injury, the "news bar" disappeared to reveal the logo of the movie channel that was not visible at first due to the near-transparent state of the symbol. Cole mentally smacked himself for having thought this to be legitimate news and let out a laugh of his own. Cole apologized to Jason over the phone.

"S'okay, rookie," Jason said in a lighter tone, "if you see any more B-movie special effects threatening Earth, kid, let me know." He soon hung up the phone and Cole followed suit. Cole soon climbed up the stairs, letting out a giggle once in a while. Now that he thought about it, that spaceship sure looked fake...

* * *

**Ship's Log: Date Index 250704-12A  
The Astro Megaship Mark-II continues to navigate the asteroid belt, which was once the Machine Empire's homeworld Gorah Khan. It was hard to believe that just a week ago, the planet was just recovering from a war with the Varox that had ended for quite some time. Yet now that planet is gone and this collection of asteroids is what is left of that world.**

On the main bridge, Andros saved the latest log entry he typed up and soon brought up any information pertaining to Gorah Khan's status prior to its destruction. TJ was at the helm, trying to steer clear of any asteroids that may pose a threat to the ship. Zhane did all he could to boost power to the new shield generator, but the last collision had damaged the power accelerators. All in all, a busy day.

Andros slumped on the seat in front of the console. "How could an entire planet be destroyed?"

"Is it possible that a super torpedo was used?" asked Zhane, referring to a drill-tipped warhead that was theoretically capable of destroying entire planets.

TJ shook his head on that note, "They were no longer in production since the fall of the Alliance."

Andros stiffened as he saw data come up on the console. "The only information about Gorah Khan was that it had been recovering from a Varox genocide attack." he explained, "The attack caused the Machine Empire to retaliate against the Varox by gathering its remaining forces and wiping out the entire species."

Zhane stared at the data that was brought up. "What about Gasket?" he asked, referring to the former Machine prince.

Andros shook his head. "Gasket hasn't been sighted since Aradon forced Mondo out of power seven years ago, just prior to the Alliance Wars. We know the Zeo Rangers encountered him one last time before his supposed hiatus, but other than that, he's been missing ever since. Not even his wife knows where he is." He tilted his head towards the main viewer, noticing that there weren't any asteroids in sight. "Have we cleared the field?"

"Yeah," responded TJ, "just a short while ago."

"Stop the ship," Andros ordered. TJ shut down the engines, causing the Megaship to slow down and eventually held its ground.

The three Space Rangers (actually two Space Rangers and one Turbo Ranger) looked on as the viewer showed the endless void of space. Many planets. Many moons. Many potential targets to whoever or whatever is responsible for this devastation.

One of those potential targets could be Earth.

To be continued...


	4. Part 4 of 14

POWER RANGERS: WRAITH (Formerly The Weapon) - Part 4 of 14  
Written by DTM666 

Disclaimer: The author of this piece would like to state that 90% of the characters featured here are properties of BVS Entertainment Inc and not that of the author. 10% of the characters featured here are original creations of the author.  
Also, the author understands that this piece automatically negates events that occur any and all PR incarnations that occur after Power Rangers Wild Force. Just thought we should be clear on that. 

Note: Thanks for the reviews and I'm glad you're enjoying it so far. Here's another chapter, I'll see you next week (or earlier if I get some reviews) with another one. 

--- 

It has been an hour since the Megaship had left the asteroid belt that was Gorah Khan. During a routine flight, TJ detected strange readings from a nearby rogue planet. Taking a small detour, the Megaship approached what appeared to be another asteroid belt, although there were also bubbles floating around. After a moment, Zhane decided to check on the repairs to the power relays, prompting TJ to take over the control.

Andros looked up the star charts in the memory banks. TJ piloted the Megaship, skillfully and carefully maneuvering the vessel so that it doesn't hit a flying rock or bubble of blob. Zhane controlled the power systems so power was evenly distributed to shields and engine power. Alpha 7 relied on his quick processing power to make minor repairs to systems.

Zhane watched one of the consoles bleep at regular intervals. Almost worried, he turned to TJ at the helm, "Try to take it easy, TJ. Even if the capacitor wasn't damaged, this Megaship isn't as well equipped as the old one. It can't handle all the maneuvering you're doing."

"Fine," TJ said with a smirk, "when this case is done, we're building a better Megaship."

The two Kerovans looked at their Terran friend with quizzical looks on their faces. The light hearted moment ended with a buzzing sound from the tactical station. Zhane rushed to the console and brought up a hex-chart on the tactical screen. The hex-chart is an integrated mapping system that replaced the older radar; the starmap is made up of hexes and a colored hex indicates a ship or other object. The blue hex in the middle of the map is the Megaship. To the upper left of the blue hex was another bogey four hexes in size, blinking at once.

Zhane observed the bigger bogey on the screen. The software could be malfunctioning, as usually a group of fighters would cause each of the red hexes blink at their own pace. Then he figured it out; it wasn't a group of fighters. It was a giant spaceship.

"Guys," Zhane concluded, his voice carrying a bit of worry, "I think we found our planet killer."

* * *

"Hey, rich boy. Get over here," Eric Myers shouted from the Silver Guardians SUV. On the other side of the street, his co-leader partner, Wes Collins, emerged from the front door of the biggest deli shops in Silver Hills. Calmly looking both aways, Wes gave a quick jog across the street and jumped into the vehicle through the open top with two wrapped hot dogs in each hand.

"Here," Wes said, extending the wrapped bun.

Eric took the wrapped hot dog, removed the layer of foil, and studied the sausage for a moment. Noticing several traces of thick yellow condiments, he tilted his head towards his partner, who looked back with a look of awkwardness and sudden fear... a common effect instilled by Eric.

"You put mustard in this?" The words spewed from the Quantum Ranger were cold and calculating.

Wes looked at his partner in awe, "You said you liked mustard!"

Eric began, paused, and waved Wes off, "Ah, screw it. You're friggin' hopeless."

Wes laughed and the two consumed their hot dogs leisurely. When they were both done, Eric started the engine and proceeded to drive down the main highway. After ten minutes of driving down a road in silence, Wes decided to engage in conversation, much to Eric's liking, because a silent road trip killed him. That's saying a lot for someone who used to consider himself a loner no more than a couple years ago.

"So where're we headed?" Wes asked.

"Angel Grove outskirts," Eric answered, "Oliver wants us there for something. I don't know what for, but I'm willing to bet this whole Mariner Bay thing has something to do with it."

Wes thought for a moment.

"Do you think we should contact the future?" he suggested, "Try and figure out if this is a result of someone tampering with the timeline or if this is a regular occurance?"

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about," Eric said, "I wanted to log on to the future database for any information on improving my Q-Rex, but of course, that's classified information."

Wes shrugged, "You know how it is with them, Eric."

Eric shrugged back, "Yeah, right. Anyway, I'd figure I contact Trip to see if he could work his way around this little red tape, but I can't get a signal from Time Force."

Wes turned to the Quantum Ranger, "Nothing? On any frequency?"

"Nope," Eric replied, "And I wouldn't count on not being able to operate that thing, because it was working fine."

Wes looked ahead aimlessly, wondering what could have gone wrong that he wouldn't be able to keep tabs with Time Force. Especially considering they were given high-level authorization to operate equipment that wasn't supposed to in their possession in the first place.

"We'll... uh, worry about it later," he said finally, "Right now, we have to get to Oliver's place A.S.A.P."

* * *

The office of Carter Grayson was practically dark, with the only sources of illumination being the viewhole of his door, the computer monitor, and a single lit candle on his bookshelf. The viewhole showed a good portion of the city that had fallen victim to the Varox' suicidal attack. Nothing particularly satisfying about that view, so much that Carter wanted to block the viewhole off, but with the base being on emergency power for the time being, blocking off the port would cut off most of the light, as the computer monitor was barely bright on its own and the candle was looking to be extinguished in a few scant minutes.

"_Commander Grayson," _a male voice from the comm said,_ "Doctor Mitchell is here to see you._"

Carter looked up at the door and turned off the computer monitor before answering, "Let her in, Reno."

The door opened and in walked a blonde-haired woman, wearing a white labcoat over a black shirt with pink rims on the neck collar. On the sleeve of the coat was a silver and black variant of the Lightspeed sigil with the medical insignia imprinted over it. Carter smiled as he saw the woman he recognized as Will Mitchell's daughter and a former Lightspeed Ranger.

"Dana," Carter said gleefully, "it's been a long time."

Dana couldn't help but grin, "I hardly call six weeks a long time." She helped herself to a chair and studied Carter's depression-ridden face, "How are you holding up here?"

Carter sighed, "I'm holding something, but it isn't up." As he said that, he tossed a small stack of sheets towards a growing pile of discarded paper in the corner.

"Looks like Dad chose the right time to retire," Dana said seriously, "If he had to handle the workload you're getting, he'd have a heart-attack on the spot."

Carter almost smiled, "Your dad would commit suicide just to roll in his grave having to deal with this. You would think that a desk job would be the easiest thing in the world. But no, you have to deal with report after report after report. I'd like to think that I've held up well, but then you throw this at me and I feel like I'm falling apart balancing all this crap on my own."

Dana nodded, "You won't have to handle all this on your own, Carter. I've got some of my medical staff tending to some of the casualties. I'd be glad to split the paperwork with you if you want."

Carter grinned for a moment, "Thanks, Dana. I appreciate it."

There was a moment of silence before Dana asked, "Any word from Chad and the others?"

Carter shook his head to answer 'no' and tossed aside another pad of paper with casualty reports. He soon buried his head in depression, prompting Dana to place a hand over Carter's shoulder.

"I'm sure he's fine," she said, although she couldn't find any solace in the words that came out of her own mouth.

Unsurprisingly, neither did Carter.

* * *

Andros, Zhane, and TJ looked at the hex-chart's four-hex bogey, still perplexed by their single-pulsating behavior. Since its discovery, work on keeping the Megaship in top condition doubled as they attempt to pursue the bogey. The various commands inputted by the three Rangers were becoming a stress for the computer, despite being the advanced computer system KO-35 ever mustered.

"Tell me it's a glitch," TJ groaned, "Please tell me it's a glitch."

Zhane shook his head. Andros slumped and turned. TJ threw his arms back and went back to the pilot's seat.

"That's no glitch, guys," answered Zhane depressingly.

"And neither is that!" Andros cried nervously as he pointed to the main viewer. The bogey was a large spherical object with several spikes placed at various positions. Other than a few faint light sources and certain red points on each spike, the object was completely black. Upon closer magnification, there are various potholes with spewing steams.

"We need to get closer," said Andros, "If this thing's responsible for the destruction of those two planets, it needs to be stopped."

"We are in no shape to be taking on THAT," Zhane warned, not his usual confident self, "We're not able to take on that at FULL strength, let alone with a damaged capacitor."

"We have to risk it," Andros insisted.

The Megaship began to slowly gain speed as it followed the massive ship. Upon reaching range, bright blue laser beams fired from the Megaship's main cannons. Each beam managed to blast the surface of the planet-killing vessel, but no damage marks were made. The red points on the three nearby spikes began to glow brighter until the spike was visible to the naked eye. The Megaship continued speed towards the surface of the ship, firing more lasers that seemingly did little or no damage.

Realizing that the lasers weren't making a dent on this ship, TJ switched to proximity torpedoes, a new addition to the Mark-II. Targeting one of the vents, he fired one torpedo, a bright green light that completely contrasts the red glowing points. The torpedo, however, exploded upon impact with steam from one of the vents. The red points dimmed down and each released a red spark directed at the Megaship. Noting this, TJ turned to the Red Space Ranger with concern and anxiety on his face.

"Can the Megaship withstand about a hundred projectiles?" the Red Turbo Ranger asked. The Kerovan looked on as red spots on the viewer grew closer and wider.

"Let's get out of here," Andros declared as he took control of the piloting system. The Megaship managed to avoid one or two projectiles, but fell into a storm of projectiles that collided all over the ship. At first, each impact was blocked by a blue energy field that would occasionally appear. After the first forty hits, each impact caused an explosion. Under a storm of red projectiles, the Megaship was covered in explosion after explosion, looking somewhat like a fireball.

Within the Megaship, consoles exploded, sparks flew off fallen cables, and fires started in various panels within the halls of the ship. Zhane was flung back by the tactical console's sudden explosion, TJ was knocked unconscious by a piece of debris that flew from one of the auxiliary panels, and Alpha 7 was crushed when his regeneration chamber suddenly caved in. Only Andros struggled to maintain his composure so that he would be able to steer the crumbling Megaship away from the massive bogey and its projectiles. The DANGER signal soon flashed on the helm console, indicating that the ship's hull integrity was almost gone. Andros pulled whatever energy was left to the engines, but problems grew worse when the computer (or what's left of it) indicated that one of the projectiles had landed a hit on one of the Megaship's main engine, thus slowing down the ship.

Andros stood helplessly in the middle of the Megaship's bridge. He stood and watch as the viewer's last image is that of a red projectile moving closer...

To be continued...


	5. Part 5 of 14

POWER RANGERS: WRAITH (Formerly The Weapon) - Part 5 of 12  
Written by DTM666

Disclaimer: The author of this piece would like to state that 90% of the characters featured here are properties of BVS Entertainment Inc and not that of the author. 10% of the characters featured here are original creations of the author.  
Also, the author understands that this piece automatically negates events that occur any and all PR incarnations that occur after Power Rangers Wild Force; hence no Dino Thunder or Ninja Storm is featured here and hence Tommy is not a doctor of anything. This is an AU, so to speak. Just thought we should be clear on that.

Note: What? No new reviews? So sad, but here's another chapter. Unless I get reviews, it'll be another week before the next chapter comes up.

---

The cage seems familiar. So did the backdrop. A perfect recreation of Rita Repulsa's dark dimension that was often used as a prison or secret hideaway. Thomas Oliver would usually be impressed with such things, such as the recreation of his most bitter enemy, Lord Zedd. He would be impressed with the skill this opponent would produce as he launched every single attack in Zedd's book and the ability to block Thomas' own attacks.

_But when your life is on the line_, he thought, _you can't take your mind of things._

After a short round of hand-to-hand combat, Zedd summon his familiar Z-staff. Thomas, anticipating this action, pulled out his own weapon, a finely-crafted double-edged sword modeled somewhat after a medieval form. Zedd jumped at Thomas with great speed and rage, but Thomas managed to leap out of the way. Both weapons struck each other, with both opponents successfully managing to block the other's various strikes. It took a mistake from Zedd to give Thomas an opening; a somewhat cumbersome overhead staff thrust that the former Green Ranger managed to sidestep. Before a reaction from Zedd could happen, Thomas leaped above his adversary and left out a quick slash across Zedd's neck. Thomas landed and turned quickly to see a fairly thin line of light between the fleshman's head and neck. But just as the head was about to tip over, the fallen warlord disappeared and the arena soon converts back to a green cubed-shape room with a faint yellow light on each corner. Thomas wiped the sweat off his head and checked the nearby monitor with "1:12" blinking on the nearby monitor display.

"Quick," he told to no one in particular, "but too easy."

Climbing from his control center to a round room made completely of marble, Thomas walked towards an empty display case and placed the sword on its stand. The sword, miraculously, didn't get damaged at all; the training room was designed to be as realistic as possible, thus adding the threat of property damage, injury, and even death. Not exactly an appetizing session for a regular student, but for Thomas Oliver, it's as close to the real Ranger deal as he can get these days.

Entering the living room, which resembles the typical household living room, he noticed someone standing in the front door. He managed to put on a clean T-shirt and walked towards the door to open. It was Jason, his longtime friend.

"Did you kill anyone?" the Red Ranger asked, noticing Thomas' sweaty appearance.

Thomas simply shrugged his shoulders, "Holograms don't count, bro. Let's go under."

Jason shook his head in disappointment, letting himself in. Thomas simply rolled his eyes around and let out a sigh as he shut the door behind him and followed his long-time partner.

"Did you hear about what happened in Mariner, bro?" Jason asked, despite knowing the answer.

Thomas swallowed hard before answering. "I've seen the whole thing, Jay. It's not pretty."

Thomas led Jason down the steps and opened the door to his lair, which overwhelmed Jason the moment he had a glance at the room. While he had visited his friend's home many times, this is the first time Jason has actually seen this place. He didn't think it would be as advanced, if not moreso, than the old Command Centers he had been used to. The sight of it just makes him wonder. 

Thomas sat near a round table and pressed a button on a nearby console. Out of thin air, two glasses and a bottle of blue liquid suddenly materialized on the table. "Kerovan Brandy," Thomas identified the liquid in question, "I never touched the stuff. Brave enough, bro?" 

"Sure," Jason answered with a smile, "although the last time I checked, that stuff's illegal in the states."

Thomas merely shrugged as he poured the beverage into both glasses and gave Jason one of them. They both stood and held glasses together for a toast. 

"To Mariner Bay," Thomas toasted, "may the city recover from its worst tragedy." 

"Amen, bro," Jason concurred. He took a sip of the ale as Thomas did the same. Both made disheartening expressions and placed the glasses back on the table.

"Bro," Jason offered, "next time you get alcohol, it better be from Earth."

Thomas laughed. "Yeah, Jay. Next time, it'll be something legal."

Jason also gave a light-hearted laugh, then his tone grew more wondrous. "Where did you get this set-up?"

Thomas hesitated for a moment before he answered, "I built it." 

Jason scoffed, "Yeah right."

"No, really," insisted Thomas, "Andros gave me a module that allowed me to use the Morphing Grid to create a command center and..." A slight pause, then he cracked a smile when he noticed Jason's confused and disbelieving look. "Forget it. The less said, the better." 

"Right" was Jason's only answer. 

Suddenly, the mail manager made a typing sound. Thomas proceeded to the computer and accessed his inbox. He clicked on the item entitled "Lightspeed". A message replaced the menu. Jason approached his friend as he read the message: 

**From : Carter Grayson, Lightspeed Rescue  
To : Thomas Oliver  
Subject : Lightspeed**

**Good news: I've gotten word that Lightspeed Task Force is sending several troops to help us out with the rescue operation. Suddenly, things aren't quite as bad as they usually are.**

**Bad news:**** I've also got word from Lightspeed Task Force's C-N-C that there could be another Varox roaming around. I think we're going to have to bring in the big guns to track this guy down. Let me know. Carter**.

"Well?" Thomas asked Jason, seeking advice. 

Jason frowned, "A Varox bounty hunter blew up and nearly leveled an entire city. We'll need a plan." 

Thomas went over to the comm system and pressed the button marked "ANDROS" on it. It took a while, but the comm system could not acquire a communications link. "I can't get to the Megaship."

Jason looked on as the monitor showed an ERROR - CONNECT FAILED message. "Maybe they're out of range," he suggested, "no matter how advanced something is, there are always limits."

"Perhaps..."

---

The last thing Andros of KO-35 saw before passing out was a red torpedo rapidly approaching the Astro-Megaship Mark-II, well certain of the final killing blow.

When he woke up however, he found himself in one piece; a little battered and bruised, but in one piece nonetheless. He looked around and saw the Megaship's bridge, or rather, what's left of it. The various computer consoles and display screens were either destroyed completely or short-circuited. Burnt-out power cables were hanging from the ceiling. The main viewer had a hole in it, revealing a small flame on the other side. The main elevator shaft to the lower decks has completely caved in. And his two partners, TJ and Zhane were knocked out during the one-sided attack.

Regaining his composure, Andros approached what was left of the Maintenance station. He checked the console's broken Plexiglas and saw an gray knob behind the screen. With proper care, Andros positioned his arm so that he could reach the knob. Upon making contact, he pressed the knob inward, which resulted in the emergency lights going on. Unlike most of the ship's other systems, the lights had their own power source.

Andros noticed that Zhane and TJ had regained consciousness.

"Am I dead yet?" Zhane asked jokingly.

"No," TJ teased, "not yet."

Andros almost let out a smile; even in the grimmest scenario, they manage to lighten up the moment. As the Red Ranger helped his friends back to their feet, he heard creaking sounds emanating from the ground. After a while, the creaking was followed by a banging sound, although the ground doesn't seem to be weak of extra weight.

"Maybe we should get out of here," Zhane cautioned, "before the bridge caves in."

"Right," TJ agreed, "We'll take the gliders."

---

The Space Rangers on their Galaxy Gliders (TJ as Red Turbo uses the Blue Glider) observed the damage done. The exterior of the Megaship is a wreck. One of the engines was vaporized by the projectile impact, there are many visible hull breaches on the ship's aft, and what was once blue or red is now a dark brown or completely black color. Miraculously, the only part of the ship that seems to be in one piece is the front port and the main hangar nearby.

Fortunately for them, the ship that managed this damage did not see fit to destroy the ship, since it was no longer a threat. However, that meant the ship was farther away and this time, the Rangers would have no way of tracking it down.

Zhane observed another ship approaching and directed the other Rangers' attention to it. The ship had a similar shape to a passenger airplane, although it generally is a little bigger and the wings were slightly bent upwards. Launching from behind the vessel, two smaller fighter craft popped out. Andros immediately recognized them.

"Quadrafighters!" he shouted.

The Rangers prepared for a fight, but the two fighters did not attack. In fact, one of the pilots spoke within a handheld comm. The Rangers have seen Cogs talk, but it was the message that surprised them.

"We've noticed your battered vessel on our long-range sensors," the Cog said in an almost human voice without vocal impediments. "Do you require assistance?"

---

Taylor Earheart was relieved that someone from Lightspeed had brought more soldiers to help with the salvage operation. To her surprise, the U.S. military managed to send some of their own to help out. Unfortunately, Chad Lee's worst fear was confirmed, when soldiers found the dead bodies of the five rookie Lightspeed Rangers. Those five, along with another seven hundred fifty people, were uncovered and sent to be buried at various cemeteries.

With Chad in the hands of Mariner Bay's top emergency crews lead by Dr. Dana Mitchell, another former Lightspeed Ranger, Taylor walked back to her fighter jet and took off. She soon gave the order to her other wingmen to return to base, but did one more pass of the city to many emergency teams and soldiers go along with their rescue plan, before rejoining formation.

---

It is no surprise that Lightspeed Rescue commander Carter Grayson's work has been cut out for him. Writing casualty reports, obituaries, bringer of bad news to those who lost loved ones, and hosting a ceremony for the fallen; even with the work divided with Dr. Dana, this was still overwhelming work. But despite this, he knows he has another problem in his mind, namely the other Varox running loose on Earth with the same potential capacity for destruction.

At 9 P.M., Carter was still working on the reports, as well as assisting Task Force soldiers with whatever he knows about the bounty hunter that caused the disaster. He did receive a call from Joel Rawlings, who hoped for nothing but good. Carter appreciated the call and he needed something like that to lift his spirits.

_There were times when I wish I hadn't taken this job_, he thought to himself.

---

A military weapons depot in Stone Canyon. Home to many nuclear and hydrogen weapons that the government had kept in hiding for the past several years, a small contingent of army soldiers as well as several Lightspeed Task Force soldiers were blocking the main exit out of the complex. Aiming at a particular creature with an armored chestplate, armed with a weapon of his own...

TO BE CONTINUED...


	6. Part 6 of 14

POWER RANGERS: WRAITH (Formerly The Weapon) - Part 6 of 12  
Written by DTM666

Disclaimer: The author of this piece would like to state that 90 percent of the characters featured here are properties of BVS Entertainment Inc and not that of the author. 10 percent of the characters featured here are original creations of the author.  
Also, the author understands that this piece automatically negates events that occur any and all PR incarnations that occur after Power Rangers Wild Force; hence no Dino Thunder or Ninja Storm is featured here and hence Tommy is not a doctor of anything. This is an AU, so to speak. Just thought we should be clear on that. 

Note: Early posting, Part 7 should be up on Wednesday. Enjoy (and review). 

--- 

Cole Evans, Jason Lee Scott, and Thomas Oliver watched a B-movie production in the theatre room of Thomas' house, stuffing themselves with popcorn. The pathetic special effects, cheesy costumes, unconvincing acting, and other low-budget intricacies of the production were the cause of much laughter from the three Rangers. Cole almost spitted out his soda when the so-called alien invaders, short men with green make-up and a couple of horns (popsicle sticks) stuck on their foreheads, finally revealed their evil plan to take over Earth by giving everyone bad haircuts with their Hair Beam. Jason seemed amused yet disappointed at the final battle, which featured paper airplanes shooting "laser beams" at various Lego buildings being ripped apart by human hands. However, just as the movie was about to reach its ending, it was interrupted with a red screen saying "Special News Report" in bold white letters.

"No," Cole said amusedly, "No way I'm getting fooled twice!"

"Shut up, rookie." Jason said seriously, "This looks real."

The report showed a female reporter standing in front of a raging wall of fire. Loud explosions and crumbling sounds, as well as various screams, is heard in the background. Cole's smile faded into a deep frown, his eyes affixed to the explosions in the background.

"For those who received this report now," she began as the Rangers watched, "there is a massive firefight in the weapons depot in Stone Canyon, where top-secret weapons of global destruction. Word is that the military forces stationed here are fighting some kind of armored monster."

Cole's jaw dropped at the mention of the word 'monster'. Both Jason and Thomas understood what that meant: the second Varox was engaging military forces in a nuclear weapons depot.

"We should get there," Cole blurted out.

Thomas shot that idea down. "We'd never get there in time."

---

The Varox was held at bay by weapons fire from the soldiers. The Varox managed a couple of his own shots that knocked down or vaporized three soldiers at best, but could not get a clear shot. Then it occurred to him; there are nuclear weapons in the other room.

The head soldier appointed by Admiral Harris noticed that the bounty hunter was running into the nuclear depot. "HOLD YOUR FIRE!" he commanded, "YOU'LL HIT THE FRICKIN' NUKES!" The others stopped shooting. The soldier, wanting this situation to be handled carefully, ordered his men to aid in the evacuation of Stone Canyon. "If the nukes go off," he explained, "I want more people alive than dead."

The soldier ran after the hunter while the rest ran out. The room had various nuclear missiles and warheads stored here. The fact that one small spark can set these things off made chasing the hunter much more difficult. After a moment of searching, he found the bounty hunter standing in front of a big metal box marked "NUKUSAL" in red bold letters.

The Varox, beneath his mask, smiled, "You managed to find me, human. I'm impressed."

"Impressing you is the last thing I'm gonna do, freak!" the soldier taunted, although he was scared out of his pants.

"Yes, it IS the last thing," the Varox said, "that you or anyone else on this planet is going to be doing soon!"

The soldier aimed his blaster at the hunter. The hunter laughed, "Are you actually dedicated to shooting me with that toy blaster?" The soldier didn't flinch.

"Tell me something," the Varox asked with a fiendish tone, obviously aware of the soldier's nervousness, "do you really want to risk an entire city's well-being for one shot at me? Don't you know that this bomb will destroy everything and be the catalyst for the master plan?"

---

"Master plan?" Admiral Gordon Harris heard the soldier ask through the hidden transmitter that was working perfectly, "what master plan?"

Several members of the Lightspeed core group, including Task Force Admiral Harris, Lightspeed Rescue Commander Carter Grayson, Lightspeed military General Kory Membla, Lightspeed Ranger leader Chad Lee, and other scientists were surrounding the radio receiver. They heard a muffled laugh, presumably from the Varox bounty hunter that they has spent a great deal of time searching for. Carter, not forgetting about the "other party" involved, has a live radio feed linked to Thomas Oliver's control center, which was being heard by Oliver, Jason Lee Scott and Cole Evans. Thomas, of course, gave transmitted that feed over to Silver Guardians leaders Wes Collins and Eric Myers in Silver Hills, whom listened to the events unfolding through a specialized radio receiver specially retrofitted by Time Force to clean up any static that may result in the breakdown of transmission.

---

The soldier aimed his blaster at the hunter's mask. This did nothing but incite a laugh from the hunter.

"Since you're going to die anyway," the hunter said, "it won't matter if I tell you that we're preparing this world for the Wraith, the ultimate weapon."

---

In the city limits, the roads are filled with military trucks, common automobiles, armored tanks, and running soldiers. Because of the minor inconsistencies, vehicles were moving slowly. Various officers were directing traffic, but many people were too scared that they abandoned their vehicles on the road and simply ran. A riot was about to occur at the dawn of potential destruction.

---

The Varox stood proudly near the NUKUSAL container. If the soldier could see his face, he probably was smiling devilishly. Suddenly, the Varox approached the soldier slowly, promptly the man to raise his weapon, aiming it at the hunter's head. The Varox stopped when he was almost face to face with the soldier.

"I know about your hidden transmitter," the Varox said, causing a slight sting in the soldier, "if you are listening to me, here is my demand; let me leave with this Nukusal and I will spare the city."

The soldier was visibly shaken, but he didn't scream or whimper. In fact, it almost seems as if he wants to blast the Varox's head off at point blank range. Then again, the Varox could easily dodge the bullet, hit a nuke, and blow the city up.

---

The officials within the room argued as whether to answer his demands or reject it. Decision is split fifty-fifty, but only one man has the final say on the matter. Carter listened to all opinions, but it didn't change the fact that he was left with a decision and a heavy burden. He had considered the consequences of what could happen if he went one way or another. On the one hand, handing that Varox a weapon of mass destruction means committing many lives to die in the near-future. On the other hand, declining the Varox and causing a firefight will result in one of the nukes going off and wipe out the city, which is still filled with people.

"We should bring this up to the defense secretary," General Membla said, breaking Carter from his train of thought, "He should be dealing with this sort of thing."

"That's usually the procedure with this sort of thing," Harris stated, "but this is an alien threat. A ticking time bomb that can and will go off at any second. This situation demands immediate action!"

"We would still need authorization from the federal government before we can go with a decision of this magnitude," one of the low-level general said, "Alien or not, he's just a petty terro-"

Membla raised a finger, silencing the general, "Don't. Say. It."

"Give him what he wants. Now."

The reluctant words of Carter Grayson had caused the room full of bickering officials to be silent. Out of all the options they were bickering over, Carter gave the one option none of them had brought up, either because it never occurred to them or because they just didn't want to bring them up. Carter knew that there would be no other viable option except for that one, as much as he hated to admit.

"But, sir," one of the generals said, "shouldn't we get authorization from-?"

"Give. Him. What. He. Wants." Carter's words were cold and calculating. "I'll deal with the higher ups when this is over, just let him have the damned Nukusal."

The general closest to the comm system studied Carter's facial expression for a moment before reluctantly giving orders of surrender to the soldier at the base. Carter squinted his eyes and hung his head as he began to regret the decision he made, even if he felt there was no other viable option. He heard the sickening laughter of the bounty hunter through the speakers followed by a whooshing sound that he registered as a teleport, but Carter heard the laughter in his head briefly.

Behind him, Admiral Harris approached Carter and stood for a moment. When Carter raised his head to face the admiral, Harris gave a half-smile. "No matter what happens, and I swear to God, something will happen, I'm behind you two-hundred percent." He saluted Carter and left the room. Membla approached Carter and gave an assuring nod.

"You know, Grayson," Membla said, "Both your image and Lightspeed Rescue's image is going to take a huge tumble if this whole plan goes wrong."

Carter shrugged. "Kory, our image isn't going to tumble any farther than it already has." As he mentioned those words, his thoughts veered to something else. _How will the other Rangers see this?_

---

The soldier, unable to believe what he has heard, lowered his gun and told the Varox hunter that the weapon is his. The Varox nodded and turned away. In a quick instant, the soldier felt the full brunt of a hard right fist across the jaw and was knocked out. The Varox approached the Nukusal and placed a round metal object on it. Pressing a button on his wrist device, both the Varox and the bomb disappeared in a flash of light.

---

The radio feed on the transmitter was abruptly cut off, and neither Wes nor Eric could make sense of the events that have just occurred. Without saying a word, both men looked at each other, nodded, and stopped their SUV to the side of the driveway to check their equipment. When both were done, they resumed their drive down the driveway.

---

Thomas Oliver couldn't believe what happened. He couldn't believe what he had just heard. He couldn't believe what he had just seen. Jason noticed his friend's blank state as Cole stared ahead at the viewer. "Tom?" he asked. Thomas didn't say anything for a while until the transmission ended.

"Jason," he said in a low, shocked tone, "That son of a bitch just handed the Varox the key to the end of the world."

Neither Jason nor Cole gave an answer. But they stared in disbelief as his best friend got up and stormed out towards the heavy duty door.

"When the dipshit gets over here, let me know," Thomas groaned as he left the room, slamming the door behind him.

TO BE CONTINUED...


	7. Part 7 of 14

POWER RANGERS: WRAITH (Formerly The Weapon) - Part 7 of 14  
Written by DTM666 

Disclaimer: The author of this piece would like to state that 90 percent of the characters featured here are properties of BVS Entertainment Inc and not that of the author. 10 percent of the characters featured here are original creations of the author.  
Also, the author understands that this piece automatically negates events that occur any and all PR incarnations that occur after Power Rangers Wild Force; hence no Dino Thunder or Ninja Storm is featured here and hence Tommy is not a doctor of anything. This is an AU, so to speak. Just thought we should be clear on that. 

Note: Here's chapter 7. You know the drill. Don't forget to leave a review. Next one's on Friday... maybe. 

--- 

To the Kerovan Andros, the sight of a battlecruiser under the banner of the crumbling Machine Empire towing the Astro Megaship, battered and ravaged from its encounter with the planet-killer ship, to KO-35 wasn't so much an awkward nor humiliating situation. Even though he had been trying to keep up to date with the Empire's politics, he still couldn't get over the fact that these Machines were helping them. 

He watched through the potholes of the ship as the Astro Megaship was towed via tractor beam. Several support vessels surrounded the ship, docked at various points of the vessel doing some ship repairs, refitting with replacement parts... heck, they were even adding a fresh touch of paint on some parts of the ship that desperately needed it. Despite these acts of generosity, he could tell by his friends' facial expressions that they weren't exactly on friendly terms. After all, the last time he and the Empire had met, they took out their head generals, even if they were officially rogues. 

Eventually after several hours of waiting in private guest chambers, the three Rangers were escorted to the main throne room, where they had expected another machine to be sitting at the throne. Instead, what they saw definitely surprised them; a human male, presumably looking to be in his mid-30s, with light-brown hair and green eyes. One hand was a cybernetic hand, while the other was a regular human hand... minus one thumb. 

"Greetings," the humanoid said courteously, "I'm Emperor Aradon." 

The three looked at each other confusedly, then turned to face the man standing before them. Other than the fact that Aradon was Mondo's chief rival for the throne, a master strategist, and the prime supporter of the bio-automation process that merged the organic with the mechanical, they knew hardly anything of the individual. Their stunned expressions gave Aradon much needed amusement, which was something lacking since the destruction of Gorah Khan. 

"I'm sorry," Aradon said grinning, "I forgot that Machine politics isn't common knowledge, nor is the recogniztion of my reign." Aradon waved his hand away at the two gold-armored Cogs, who promptly exited the room. Aradon's smile quickly faded as he stood and approached the three. "What are you doing here anyway?" 

"We found out about your homeworld being destroyed by a massive alien construct capable of destroying entire planets," Andros answered, "Upon discovering the construct, it attacked us and nearly destroyed us." He let out a sigh. "I'm surprised it hasn't."  
  
"I might be able to shed some light on the situation," Aradon offered calmly, "We have been investigating the source of various colony worlds along the Machine/Kerovan neutral zone. We had only learned about Gorah Khan's demise a short while ago from the planetary defense force that engaged the weapon. Like yourselves, they were crippled to the point where they would no longer pose a threat. We hadn't heard from them since." 

Zhane swallowed a lump before talking. "We didn't detect any readings. It was possible they were destroyed in the shockwave following the planet's destruction." 

Aradon was silent for a moment. It turned away from the Rangers to conceal the tears forming from his eyes. Sometimes he almost regretted this enhanced emotional program. Wiping the tears from his face and regaining his composure, he turned back to the Rangers. 

"I appreciate you telling me that," he said bitterly, "Follow me to the main auditorium. I will share what we know about this planet-killer." 

"Why help us?" TJ asked, "We might not be enemies, but we're hardly friends. Why waste your resources on us when you could left us to die?" 

Aradon shrugged. "I'm a sucker for hard-luck organics such as yourselves." 

The three Rangers looked at each other in disbelief, probably thinking the same thing; _no wonder Mondo hates this guy._

--- 

After an hour's drive, Carter Grayson parked the Rover in front of the home of Thomas Oliver. He felt the need to explain his brash strategy to the others in order for them to understand what he was thinking... which would be difficult because even he wasn't sure if it was a strategy or pure desperation, but Carter would never admit that. Shutting the car down, he hopped out and proceeded towards the front door. With the single knock, the door was pushed open to Carter's surprise. Gingerly and with a funny feeling at the pit of his stomach, he stepped inside and approached the staircase going down, where Thomas' command lair was situated. Carter begrudgingly opened the door and... 

"You gutless son of a bitch." Thomas' first words summed up his anger to Carter. 

From the farthest side of the room, Jason Lee Scott and Cole Evans watched as the former Red Lightspeed Ranger and the Red Zeo Ranger went into a heated battle of words over Carter's vote to hand the rogue Varox the Nukusal. 

"What did you expect me to do?" he barked in defense, "There were nuclear weapons in there! I couldn't risk blowing up a shot to capture one potential bounty hunter--" 

Thomas cut Carter off at that moment. "The most 'volatile' nuclear weapon are now in the hands of a deadly hunter who will stop at nothing to blow us all to hell!" 

"What's so bad about this Nukusal bomb?" Cole whispered to Jason while the two were bickering. 

"It's not really a bomb, Cole," Jason whispered back, "From what I've heard about it, it's supposed to send a universal signal to every nuke on this planet, causing them to self-destruct all at the same time. Considering how many hidden nukes are out there..." Jason finished his answer by motioning his left hand across his neck in a cutting motion. Cole hung his head in realization what the first Red Ranger had meant. 

Carter's face grew angrier; he couldn't believe that this guy is blaming him for something he believes he had no control over. "I have to consider the safety of thousands of people," he remarked coldly, "I'm not the same man I was two years ago, Oliver. I'm the head of Lightspeed Rescue, which says a lot more than what you're doing!" 

This prompted Thomas to go into a fighting stance. Jason stood up and tried to calm his friend, but Thomas wouldn't have it. 

"Back off, Jason," he told his friend, "this is between me and Mr. Lightspeed Rescue over here." 

Carter took off his uniform jacket and went into his own fighting stance. "I don't want to fight," he said sternly, "but if I have to, I will." 

Cole took a step forward in an attempt to calm the two, but Jason stopped him. "Don't bother," he advised, "they'll just kick your ass too." Cole did as he said. 

Thomas stared at Carter with rage. Carter stared back at the former Green Ranger with a slight hint of anxiety, although he didn't show it. Both motioned in a circle for two minutes, neither one attempting or even hinting at making the first move. Thomas breathed heavily while Carter let out quick huffs. Jason noticed that Thomas was willing to get into this fight, while Carter would do anything to get out of it. 

"Tom," Jason said softly, not caring whether Thomas was listening or not. "As much as I don't like what Carter did, that's no reason for this stupidity." No answer from Thomas, just as Jason expected. 

"Remember the old days, bro? Remember when we were under that shark's spell that brought us against each other?" Still no answer. 

"Listen to me, bro. Carter's not the enemy." Jason said calmly, although Thomas isn't even acknowledging it. "This isn't going to fix things. You're better than this." 

Carter stopped and let his arms hang. He looked over to Jason, who was smacking himself on the forehead as if saying, "Carter, you idiot!" When he noticed Carter letting his guard down, Thomas proceeded to take a step forward, about to make the first move, but Jason stepped in. 

"Get out of my way, Jay." Thomas barked. 

"No way, Tom," Jason declared, "you want him, you have to go through me." 

Thomas looked at his friend. "My problem's with Mr. 'Duuhh ah'm da head of Lightspeed.'" 

Jason seemed disappointed by his friend's behavior. "Look, bro," he advised, with a bit of threat behind it, "You're angry and I can understand that. Fighting doesn't solve anything, but if you really need to vent your frustration, then fight me, not this idiot over here." The 'idiot' response got to Carter, but decided against retaliation. _He seems angry at me too_, he thoughtfully concluded. 

Thomas pulled out his Zeonizer from his pocket. _Not exactly what I wanted_, Jason thought. Since he couldn't get Thomas to change his mind, he decided to play along and pulled out his own Morpher. Thomas noticed this and almost winced; he hadn't expect this from Jason. 

"If we're going to do this," Thomas said forcibly, "we're going to do this outside." 

Jason nodded in agreement, morpher firmly in hand. Cole, noticing tensions were about to get hot, tried to play peacekeeper. "Wait a minute, guys. We can solve this." he said, but was meet by two glares that told him to back off. 

Jason turned back to his friend. "Okay. Let's get this over with." 

---

"What you're about see," Aradon stated in an auditorium with the three Rangers, "is what we know about this planet-killer as you call it."

Aradon pressed on a button and an image appeared on the giant viewer. The pictures showed of a spiked egg blueprint, followed by several satellite images of a black egg-shaped object in planetary atmospheres. During the clip show, Aradon dictated his notes to his three guests.

"The ship that you've encountered is called the Wraith," he began, "a weapon of unlimited power. It is, remarkably, the most well-armed and well-armored vessel that the Machine Empire has ever encountered."

"I take it by the tone of your voice that you've dealt with this before," Zhane interjected.

Aradon nodded. "The unfortunate destruction of Gorah Khan was the second meeting with the Wraith. The first meeting took place to a hundred Earth years ago, near a then-disputed sector of space where various planets were found to be missing. An battalion of ten battlecruisers and fifty destroyers were sent to either possibly disable or preferably destroy the ship in question." Andros noticed a bit of sadness in Aradon's tone. "At first, the battle went well, but the fleet was met with seemingly inescapable fire from the Wraith and was subsequently wiped out."

"The name does sound familiar," Zhane mused, "but I don't remember from where."

"The Wraith was a construct of ancient times," Aradon added, "Its origins, as well as its history, was locked away. What is known is that there are... there were three Wraiths built in the universe. This is one of them."

Andros raised a hand, "Did you say _three_?"

"Wraiths are rarely seen, so it is impossible to ascertain the status of the second Wraith." Aradon said, his voice calm, "There was a Wraith involved in the Alliance Wars, controlled by the inhabitants of the Rugalian Confederation to defend their worlds from an onslaught of Alliance starcruisers. It practically took an entire star fleet of well over a thousand battleships, armed with high-powered plasma weapons, to finally destroy the Wraith, thereby affirming that the incredible durability of the Wraith's outer shell. The Rugalians were the only empire to fully repel the Alliance's advances."

Aradon pressed another button, the image changed to one of the Wraith's spikes that the Megaship encountered. "Each one of these spikes on the Wraith has about 12 pulse cannons each; they're the red spots on the surface of the spike. Seemingly incapable of overheating, the pulse cannons are generally an archaic model, but a great number of them could do sufficient damage."

TJ studied the spike closely while Zhane looked past Aradon to view the outer pothole.

"How would this 'Wraith' blow planets apart?" TJ asked, "I doubt that those cannons would do the job."

"Of course not, the cannons are primitive," Aradon answered. He pushed another button and an image of the Wraith's front view was brought up; a round shape with a red pulsating hole in the middle. "The Wraith uses a super laser," he continued, "whose design is based on the laser weapon of Serpenterra, except the beam is, in theory, more concentrated than that of Zedd's former Zord."

"Wait," interrupted Andros, trying to keep up, "are you saying that Wraith is a smaller, but stronger version of Serpenterra?"

Aradon nodded. "It is entirely possible the two are related, but at the moment, it is impossible to confirm that theory without getting a piece of the Wraith itself. And that, my friends, would be impossible considering the great strength of this enemy."

"Great," TJ groaned, "several hundred pulse weapons, tough as nails armor, AND a planet-killing super-laser. It can't get any worse, can it?"

---

Out on an open field, two longtime friends face each other in combat for the first time in a long while. Some distance apart, Thomas Oliver and Jason Lee Scott locked eyes with each other for some time. Each one holds their respective morpher, waiting for the right moment. Near the house, Carter Grayson and Cole Evans watched the fight from afar. They were about to see a sight they never thought possible; the battle between two Power Rangers.

Jason looked at his friend; _Tom had some anger built in him_, he thought to himself, and _he needs to vent it out_. Thomas looked back at his friend; _Jason knows I need to vent my anger_, he thought, _but not on him_.

"I was going to let this pass, Tom," Jason said, "but since you really need this, then I should let you know that I'm not holding back."

Thomas nodded with reluctance, "Agreed. Let's do this."

Both Red Rangers stared each down a short while longer before calling out in unison, "IT'S MORPHIN TIME!"

To be continued...


	8. Part 8 of 14

POWER RANGERS: WRAITH (Formerly The Weapon) - Part 8 of 14  
Written by DTM666 

Disclaimer: The author of this piece would like to state that 90 percent of the characters featured here are properties of BVS Entertainment Inc and not that of the author. 10 percent of the characters featured here are original creations of the author.  
Also, the author understands that this piece automatically negates events that occur any and all PR incarnations that occur after Power Rangers Wild Force; hence no Dino Thunder or Ninja Storm is featured here and hence Tommy is not a doctor of anything. This is an AU, so to speak. Just thought we should be clear on that. 

Note: Yes, I said I would have gotten this up on Friday, but unfortunately I was delayed with other stuff... and I got no reviews for the last chapter, so here it is today. It's a bit on the short side (compared to the other offerings), but it's better than nothing. Hopefully, I'll be able to keep up with the Wednesday update at least. Anyway, enjoy and review. 

--- 

Out on an open field, two longtime friends face each other in combat for the first time in a long while. Some distance apart, Thomas Oliver and Jason Lee Scott locked eyes with each other for some time. Each one holds their respective morpher, waiting for the right moment. Near the house, Carter Grayson and Cole Evans watched the fight from afar. They were about to see a sight they never thought possible; the battle between two Power Rangers.

There have been Ranger battles among each other before, but this was different. There are no spells involved, no misguided loyalties, no evil agents... just two longtime friends venting out their frustrations... or rather, the frustrations of one.

Jason looked at his friend; _Tom had some anger built in him_, he thought to himself, and _he needs to vent it out_. Thomas looked back at his friend; _Jason knows I need to vent my anger_, he thought, _but not on him_.

"I was going to let this pass, bro," Jason said, "but since you really need this, then I should let you know that I'm not holding back."

Thomas nodded with reluctance. "Agreed. Let's do this."

Both Red Rangers stared each down a short while longer before calling out in unison, "IT'S MORPHIN TIME!"

Two flashes of light enveloped on both Jason and Thomas. When both faded, they were replaced with the Red Power Ranger and Zeo Ranger 5 - Red, both of them brandishing their respective Power swords. Neither one made a move for a minute. Then the battle begun.

Zeo 5 leaped to the air, raising his sword above his head. Red Ranger also leaped with his sword above his head too. When the two met, both swords clashed together, causing a slight spark of red energy. The two landed on their feet and began dueling. Red Ranger managed to block off Zeo 5's attacks, and Zeo 5 managed to do the same. A mistake on Zeo 5's part allowed for an opening, and Red Ranger took advantage with a spinning heel kick to his opponent's hand, disarming him of his Zeo sword. Zeo 5 would leap from Red Ranger's sword strikes until he was in a favorable distance. Taking his Zeo Blaster, he fired a laser beam at Red Ranger. While the Power sword deflected the beam successfully, more shots from Zeo 5 managed to keep Red Ranger off-balance. After blocking a few blows, a beam finally impacted Red Ranger, knocking him down.

Red Ranger groggily got back on his feet and turned to see Zeo 5 leap, motioning for a jump kick. He recognized this move as the "Zeo Flying Power Kick," an effective maneuver. Zeo 5 flew at incredible speed and managed to land the kick on Red Ranger's head, knocking him down.

Looking ahead behind his mask, Thomas frowned. "I expected more from you, Jason. You're a little out of touch."

"Don't worry, bro," Red Ranger rebutted as he struggled back to his feet, "I'm just getting started."

Drawing his Blade blaster from his holster, he fired several charged shots at Zeo 5. Although the first shot missed, the second shots onward did not and Zeo 5 was jolted to the ground, but soon recovered quickly. Both Rangers attempted another round of hand-to-hand combat, showing off their martial arts prowess. Each attack was blocked, each move countered once or twice, each attempt at a finishing blow missed. After sidestepping one of Red Ranger's roundhouse kicks, Zeo 5 thrust his head with full force at Red Ranger's face. Taking advantage of his opponent's stunned state, he leaped with another Power Kick attempt in mind, but Red Ranger blocked the maneuver with his arms and countered with a swift kick to the head of Zeo Red. Thomas could do nothing except wait until his body impacted the ground.

Seeing Zeo 5 struggling to his feet, Red Ranger rushed towards his opponent and went for a sliding kick, effectively tripping Zeo 5 back on the black soil of the battle field. Zeo 5 was able to recover from the attack and managed to get back on his feet.

Red Ranger and Zeo 5 stood at a distance from each other, both firmly clutching their blasters with both hands. Traditional martial arts did not work. Swordplay did nothing to end the fight. It would be luck of the draw. Without hesitation, Red Ranger fired several blasts, but Zeo 5 managed a high leap and fired a flurry of laser bolts at Red Ranger, who managed to dodge most of the incoming fire before getting blasted on the chest and was subsequently knocked down.

With his adversary fallen, Zeo 5 threw away the blaster and made a leap in the air. He positioned his right arm so that the tip of the elbow would hit. Red Ranger noticed his adversary above him, but did not move out of the way. Instead, he simply crossed his arms across his chest and soon extended them. A brief flash occurred, blinding Zeo 5 temporarily but not enough to knock him away. Zeo 5 did feel a pain in his elbow, as it collided with a golden chestplate. Zeo 5 stood quickly and observed his fallen opponent. Behind the mask was a shocked look as he witnessed the Red Ranger bearing the armorpiece of the Green Ranger.

_That's impossible_, Thomas thought, _isn't it?_

With the distraction in place, Red Ranger lifted his foot across Zeo 5's head, knocking him aloop for a second. When Zeo 5 got himself back together, he looked ahead at his Ranger opponent and saw him forming a ball of green energy between the palms of his hands. That same ball grew slightly larger with each passing second, the green energy slowly change into a brighter crimson color. When the energy ball reached a sufficient charge, Red Ranger released the projectile and saw as it impacted and knocked down Zeo 5, crackling him with red and green energy. Once fallen, the uniform of Zeo Ranger 5 faded and left behind the defeated Thomas Oliver, clutching his chest in pain. The victorious Red Ranger demorphed soon after and went to check on his friend, who seemed to be alright, albeit in slight pain.

"You okay, bro?" Jason asked, offering a hand.

Thomas nodded slowly, taking the hand of his friend, who helped get back on his feet.

"Thanks, man," Thomas said, almost sounding embarrassed, "I needed that."

"No problem, bro."

As the two Rangers recovered, Thomas' wrist communicator made a light tone, indicating that he was receiving an e-mail. Jason motioned him to go ahead while he recovered. Thomas gave a small smile, nodded, and rushed towards the house.

---

_The Astro Megaship has seen better days_, Andros thought to himself. 

As Andros surveyed the halls of the ship, he could see panels laying around along with various bits of debris. On the up side, the ship had been repaired to the point where it can operate under its own power, but it still required some repair work, specifically in restore lost systems like weapons and shields. 

As he observed a routine maintenance check, his mind reflected back to the past two hours. The first hour was learning how to operate the foreign Machine equipment, which had changed substancially in the past couple years. Once he was able to transmit messages, he sent a quick email message to Thomas Oliver on Earth, detailing their adventure thus far. When that was done, he made a quick call to his fiancée Ashley on KO-35. Naturally, she was worried about him, but Andros assured her that he and the others were fine. Fifteen minutes of talking later, Andros tried to make contact with another former Turbo/Space Ranger, Carlos, who was commander of the Delta Megaship MK2. Unfortunately, he was unavailable. That's when he decided to start checking on repairs to the Megaship. 

Andros quickly returned to reality as a nearby Cog told him that the Megaship now has a workable jump drive that will carry the Megaship to the Kerovan sector, where proper repairs and upgrades would be made. Before long, the small Aradon-led Machine fleet arrived in orbit of KO-35. The sudden appearance of a Machine fleet unsettled some nerves aboard the orbital platforms, but after some clearing up, things were relatively fine. 

Zhane agreed to stay behind on KO-35 to take charge of repairs to the Megaship, while Andros and TJ would stay with Aradon aboard his ship to meet with another small squadron of Machine cruisers. A short time later, Aradon's fleet left orbit and work began on developing battle tactics for confronting the Wraith. 

Unfortunately, no method was developed in tracking its whereabouts, only the trail of asteroid fields that fill the void of rogue planets. Suddenly, sirens sounded and cogs were seen rushing towards battle positions. The bright white lights dimmed and started to pulsate in a red haze. Andros and TJ stood up looking around at the chaos occurring in the ship. 

"What's going on?" the Kerovan asked. 

"Trouble" was Aradon's only answer. 

To be continued...


	9. Part 9 of 14

POWER RANGERS: WRAITH (Formerly The Weapon) - Part 9 of 14  
Written by DTM666

Disclaimer: The author of this piece would like to state that 90 of the characters featured here are properties of BVS Entertainment Inc and not that of the author. 10 of the characters featured here are original creations of the author.  
Also, the author understands that this piece automatically negates events that occur any and all PR incarnations that occur after Power Rangers Wild Force; hence no Dino Thunder or Ninja Storm is featured here and hence Tommy is not a doctor of anything. This is an AU, so to speak. Just thought we should be clear on that. 

Okay, here's part 9. Any reviews and criticisms would be greatly appreciated. 

--- 

An hour of tactical briefing, updates from Andros, and plans to reconvene at a later time within the Oliver household seemed similar to the daily Lightspeed meetings Carter Grayson had to sit through. But this meeting was a little hard for him. While tensions had been lifted from Jason and Thomas' little scuffle, Carter felt a weight supposedly keeping him down. He had begun doubting himself ever since the so-called legend talked him down and several thing quickly came to mind. He knew he did the right thing; he had no choice. But the more he thought about it, the more he wondered if there truly was another alternative.

When the briefing was over, the room emptied quickly, leaving behind Carter and Thomas alone in the room. Carter slowly stood from his chair and almost started to walk towards the door, but Thomas raised a hand and Carter stopped. He loooked into the eyes of this veteran and found a bit of sorrow and regret in his eyes. Likewise, Thomas noticed the look of guilt on Carter's face and dropped his head down.

"Look, I'm sorry I went all out at you," Thomas said apologetically, "I didn't mean to. I'm just frustrated at all this."

"Don't worry about it, man," answered Carter, allowing himself a smile, "this thing's been hot on all of us."

Thomas flashed a smile that quickly faded. "Do you happen to have information on the Nukutal? Anything that could help us deactivate it?"

"I don't know," Carter answered, "Most of the ET-files are classified, but I'll see what I can do."

"Good," Thomas said, "I've sent the Silver Guardians on a survey mission in the Mojave Desert to check if _Prodigy_ is completed. They're supposed to let me know when they found it so I can check it out. I can't say more than that, unfortunately." He paused for a moment. "If you got the necessary stats and I'm not here, give them to Jason. He's going to see if he could round up some extra help."

Carter nodded. "Gotcha."

Thomas smiled. "Better get going, Commander."

With that, Carter gave Thomas a salute and walked out the room. Thomas waited until the door was shut, then gave a salute of his own. He allowed a grin. Even though things seem badly, he has a plan that requires something from the old days. Something that is vital...

_Enough of this_, he thought, _time to get to work._

--- 

A regular debriefing for former Wild Force Ranger Taylor Earheart concerning her involvement in the recovery of survivors in the Mariner Bay incident was nothing special; the usual debriefing procedure that is common with most military forces. She saluted her officials, packed her bags, and left the base in her yellow Jeep, ready to take advantage of her leave. 

Riding by the clean Turtle Cove beaches, she contemplated several things; Chad, the Ranger that was uncovered in the debris, was a close friend to the commander, who himself was one. She thought of the time she met Eric and how they acquainted with each other... hard to believe these two met due to a speeding violation. And then she thought of her other Ranger friends. She had not seen them in a long time and sometimes worry about them, despite her somewhat cold exterior. 

After riding around the streets for a while, Taylor headed home for a much-needed rest. She couldn't contribute anything else when she was a Ranger, let alone tired. 

--- 

In a desert backdrop, a sole black hummer can be sighted racing at incredible speeds, causing sand to fly out from under the vehicle. The hummer would soon approach a rock formation and stopped about a mile away. The passenger door opened and out stepped Wes Collins carrying a shotgun. He turned his head to the other side of the vehicle to see his friend and partner Eric Myers, also carrying a shotgun, climbing out of the other side. Both looked at the rock formation ahead of them, knowing the path ahead will not be an easy one. 

For the next hour, the two co-leaders of the Silver Guardian defense force traveled across the rigged mountain terrain of the Mojave desert. They found it utterly baffling that they should be sent here to look for something that they would have remotely no clue as to what it looks like, but Thomas Oliver is rarely a man who gives out details... at least, that's what most of his friends would say 

"Man," Wes complained, "you'd think he'd warn us about the heat!" 

Eric looked back at his partner and couldn't help but laugh at Wes' expense. "Relax. As soon as I find a nice sombrero, I'll let you have it." 

Wes snorted, embarrassed at himself. 

Some time later, the two came across a strange formation of rocks. Looking up, they noticed a structure of unknown origin. The structure seems to be in ruins but from their current position, the Silver Guardian/Time Force Rangers couldn't tell for sure. 

"Since we're close," Eric lied, as he really wasn't sure, "maybe we should take five." 

Wes nodded in agreement and slumped on the ground while Eric sat down. He then pulled out two pocket-sized silver bags, toss one to Eric, and opened it up. Eric stared at his package for a moment and opened his as well. The package is actually a food ration and contained nothing more than various dried banana slices, cracker crumbs, and other dehydrated crumbs. Wes took a pitch of the contents and dropped them in his mouth while Eric consumed the contents from the bag as he would a drink. 

"Nothing like crumbs to fill your batteries, right?" Wes asked jokingly. 

Eric didn't answer, but didn't ignore his partner either. 

Wes' smile faded and decided to bring up another subject. "So I heard you and the Wild Force chick had a date last week." 

Eric looked at his friend as if he was disillusioned. "I don't believe a visit to the Weapons Museum is considered a 'date,' Wes." he groaned in depression. Noticing his friend eyeing on him, he surrendered his confidentiality. "It went okay." 

Wes waited for Eric to continue, but nothing. "That's it? 'It went okay?' That's all you have to say." 

Eric looked up at Wes' disbelieving face and grinned devilishly. He then announced with triumph, "It's more than you need to know." The response was Wes moaning and Eric felt satisfied with himself. 

"Okay, stop crying," Eric told him, "we have work to do." 

--- 

The main viewer showed a cross-shaped vessel practically the same size as Aradon's battlecruiser. The vessel was commonly operated by rogue pirates that served under the banner of the former Alliance. 

The bridge of the battlecruiser filled with cogs and infantry-cogs going back and forth, prepping the ship for combat. After reaching weapons range, the cruiser fired its disruptor cannons at the stern of the pirate cruiser. The bright orange energy beams were blocked by a greenish energy field. The pirate ship managed a burst of energy torpedoes directed at the battlecruiser's engine, but the torpedoes missed their mark, allowing the battlecruiser to fire two more disruptor beams at the pirate vessel, blocking the beams with their shield. 

In the tactical center of the ship, Aradon was barking orders to cogs while the two Rangers watched from the sidelines. They were willing to help, but since they don't know much about the new Machine tech, they opted to stay out of the way until they were needed. Aradon watched the display screen, showing the pirate cruiser launching small fighter craft. They seemed like the new streamlined Velocifighters, except they were moving at a high speed and were firing pulse weapons. 

Noticing this, Aradon turned to the two humans. "I assume you know how to pilot a fighter?" 

Both nodded. 

"Good," Aradon said, "then get onto Quadrafighters and give us a hand." 

--- 

After a slow and steady climb, Wes Collins and Eric Myers reached the top to survey the strange structure. As it turned out, the structure seems to be recently built. It's strange because just several minutes prior, the structure was in ruin. Wes and Eric stared at each other for a moment before approaching the nearest wall. On the wall were some designs, not necessarily engraved, but as if it was drawn with charcoal. Wes rubbed off a part of the design and inspected his fingers to find them covered with charcoal. 

"I guess this is it," Wes concluded, "call Tom. Tell him we found it." 

Eric nodded and pulled out his cell phone. He had to walk back several meters away from the structure in order to get a clear signal, but once he did, quickly dialed in Thomas Oliver's home phone number. 

"Hello?" 

Eric noticed the depression on the other side of the line, "You okay?" 

Thomas stated it bluntly, "I got my ass handed. What's up?" 

Eric paused for a moment, looking at the structure that had finished forming itself, before answering, "I think we've found your wrecked 'command center...'" 

No answer on the other line. Eric probably assumed he lost the signal, but checked that the timer was still going. Finally, Thomas spoke, albeit with a hint of uncertainty, "Are you sure?" 

Eric looked around once more before responding awkwardly, "I guess." 

"Okay," Thomas said, still uncertain, "I'm on my way." 

--- 

The pirate Velocifighters came in swarms, shooting down Quadrafighters with their missiles and using pulse weapons to weaken the Machine battlecruiser's shields. In the cockpit of one of the Quadrafighters, Andros checked for a weak point in the pirate cruiser's defenses. Noticing a nearby Velocifighter, Andros veered his fighter for a collision course. At a decent range, he fired the Quadrafighter's plasma rings at the incoming target, promptly destroying it and proceeding for the pirate cruiser. 

TJ had his own problems trying to destroy torpedoes that were further weakening the cruiser's shields. He fired one of the specially-equipped polaron torpedoes at one of the Velocifighters and watched as the light-blue bolt smashed through one Velocifighter after another until it impacted the pirate cruiser's stern shield. TJ targeted the cruiser itself and noticed that the pirate ship had one force shield surrounding the ship as opposed to a shield for each side of the ship. Because of this, TJ grinned and pressed on an intercom system. 

"Andros," he yelled loudly enough to make him audible amid the firefights, "the pirate ship only has one shield surrounding the whole ship. Another torpedo should drop the shield." 

Andros didn't answer his friend. Instead, the Kerovan headed straight for the pirate cruiser. TJ realized his friend's course of action and decided to provide cover fire for all incoming enemy fighters. One Velocifighter managed to slip by the two R at high speeds. TJ could do nothing but watch as that one suicidal fighter managed to punch right through the battlecruiser's shields and crash right into one of the ship's wings. 

Within the battlecruiser, computer consoles blew apart and bulkheads flew, resulting in the destruction of several cogs in the room. The tactical center of the ship also suffered, with debris flying and several cables hanging loose from the ceiling. Aradon managed to avoid damage, although his infantry was not lucky enough. 

Within weapon range, Andros guided his Quadrafighter above the pirate cruiser. The cruiser fired its own laser weapons, but the Red Space Ranger managed to expertly dodge the incoming fire and retaliated with a couple of polaron torpedoes at one of the ship's engine. One torpedo was met with an energy shield, but the second torpedo managed to impact the engine, causing a cascade of explosions to occur. 

Over the comm, Andros informed the squadron, "The pirate ship is vulnerable! Let's take it out NOW!" 

Ten Quadrafighters began launching their torpedoes at the pirate ship while the others finished off the remaining Velocifighters. The pirate ship attempted to turn for escape, but could not evade or withstand the barrage of torpedoes. In a matter of seconds, the flaming hulk of the vessel blew apart, debris scattered throughout space. The enemy has been vanquished. 

"We did it!" TJ declared over the comm system, "we won!" 

There were slight cheers over the comm system of the battlecruiser. Despite the damage and losses suffered, they have survived. Suddenly, the celebration halted as quickly as it begun when a warning signal sounded. One of the Cogs still standing in the tactical center checked the scanner. 

"My liege," the Cog said in its mechanical voice, "there is a massive vessel approaching." 

Andros heard the Cog's warning over the comm. As he looked on, he noticed an spiked, egg-shaped vessel approaching. He recognized the spikes, the red weapon ports, the steam. It was the threat they were chasing after. The Wraith. 

TJ observed the ominous ship approach the battered fleet. In his mind, he knows that they do not stand a chance. 

Aradon observed the Wraith from what's left of his throne room. He sat on his battered throne and clutched both hands together, contemplating his next move. He could strike the enemy, but they're significantly damaged from the battle with the pirate ship. 

"What's our status?" Aradon demanded. 

One Cog answered, a slight hint of pity in the mechanical voice, "My liege, the ship is a wreck. Our shield system is malfunctioning, our weapons are at 30 efficiency, and we have almost no maneuvering power. We have lost twenty-two Quadrafighters out of the thirty-three." 

Aradon stared blankly at the approaching Wraith. "Recall all Quadrafighters back to the ship," he ordered with reluctance, "we have to retreat." 

To be continued...


	10. Part 10 of 14

POWER RANGERS: WRAITH (Formerly The Weapon) - Part 10 of 14  
Written by DTM666

Disclaimer: The author of this piece would like to state that 90 percent of the characters featured here are properties of BVS Entertainment Inc and not that of the author. 10 percent of the characters featured here are original creations of the author.  
Also, the author understands that this piece automatically negates events that occur any and all PR incarnations that occur after Power Rangers Wild Force; hence no Dino Thunder or Ninja Storm is featured here and hence Tommy is not a doctor of anything. This is an AU, so to speak. Just thought we should be clear on that.

---

_Damn_, Carter Grayson thought to himself as he stared blankly at a monitor screen with various figures, _why did they change to a new OS?_

In his office at Lightspeed Rescue HQ, Carter Grayson agonized ever having to look up anything in the Lightspeed Central Database. It wasn't that he couldn't use a computer; he had gained a working knowledge of both Windows and Mac operating systems over the past year of his tenure of commander. However, the Lightspeed database ran on neither of these traditional operating systems, nor did they work on any of the lesser-known operating systems such as Linux. Instead, the 'geniuses' at Lightspeed Tech (a separate R&D division not related to Rescue's own group of techies) designed a new operating system solely to be used by Lightspeed.

The system, dubbed LIGHTDOOR, was designed so that hacker attacks would be minimized or eliminated completely, but the high security measures of LIGHTDOOR came at the cost of fluent operating ease, as many of the system's features were difficult to operate. Even the most simplist of commands, such as browsing a network or saving a document onto memory, was an annoyingly difficult task, prompting Carter to wonder how he ever got around to using this system daily without tossing it into the nearest waste disposal slot.

One thing was for certain: the LIGHTDOOR system was the only system able to access the Lightspeed database, where most documents, files, and security plans were stored. Under normal circumstances, the Lightspeed database was openly available to all to use, provided one has the proper level of clearance to access the required file. But when Carter called up for files on the Wraith, he couldn't get through. Every time he attempted to open up the Wraith files, he was met with a ERROR - ACCESS NOT ALLOWED message. He tried entering his access code, but the system would not give. Carter cursed himself silently as the machine started taunting him with the ERROR - ACCESS NOT ALLOWED message. Carter knew he would have to search for the right code to open those "restricted" files, but he was presented with another dilemma; why would anyone keep him from accessing the Wraith files?

Realizing a plan, he pressed a button on his comm system. "Reno," he said, "I can't access the Wraith files. Could you help me with this?"

"Sure," a rugged voice blurted over the speaker, "I'm on my way."

Carter stared at the monitor for a moment until he noticed Reno through the window. The door opened at Carter's command. Walking in was a tall man in his mid-30s, wearing a green shirt with blue pants. A well-built man showing off an aura of intelligence, Reno was one of the participants of the Ranger Initiative program that Carter engaged fifteen months ago to recruit a new team of Rangers. Reno would have been a Ranger if it wasn't for a leg injury he suffered during a trial run, but Carter pulled some strings and offered Reno a spot as his right-hand man. Reno had proven himself to be a viable asset to the Lightspeed Rescue team due to his knowledge in computers and strategic operations, earning the nickname "Lightspeed Miracle Man." Taking his role seriously than most would, Reno lived up to his newly gained moniker, working with Carter on many files and over time the two became fast friends.

When the door behind him closed, Reno saluted Carter (with Carter returning the salute) and approached the system. "Something wrong, sir?" he asked in his usual rugged tone.

Carter turned to look at Reno's face who saw the urgency in his commander's eyes. "You do realize that anything we do or say comes out of this room?" Carter asked in a stern voice.

Reno looked back at Carter with a confused expression. He took a breath and stated, "I have no idea what you're talking about, sir."

Carter gave a reassuring nod and pointed to the computer screen. Reno grabbed Carter's vacant chair and positioned himself in front of the screen, working the keyboard and mouse with fluidity. Carter seemed impressed every time Reno worked the complicated LIGHTDOOR system with relative ease.

"This Wraith document looks like a standard Level-2 clearance file," Reno blurted at he studied the statistics, "so you should be able to access it. Your rank should be able to access all five clearance levels."

"Except I can't," Carter said impatiently, "and no matter what I do, I can't seem to override it because of this damned system."

Carter stood and offered the chair to Reno, who accepted by sitting down. Reno was typing on the keyboard, trying every code that he knows. After several unsuccessful attempts, Reno turned to Carter and said, "This may take awhile, sir. You may want to sit down."

Carter, not wanting to argue with his trusted right-hand man, tossed aside the mounds of hardcopy documents to eventually uncover a free spot of his half-buried guest couch, where he dropped on and looked up lifelessly. He sighed heavily for a moment and glanced at Reno, who was concentrated firmly on working the system to unlock the files. Five minutes passed by when Carter frustratingly got up from the couch and approached the wall-mounded safe. Pressing a couple keystrokes, the safe opened up to reveal a synthetron, a matter replication system capable of creating almost anything the user desires... or in the case of this synthetron, all sorts of beverages from over sixty quadrants.

"Want anything to drink, Reno?" Carter asked.

Reno smiled. "No thanks, sir. I just ate."

Carter nodded and inserted several key commands. In the small synthesizing chamber, a small glass containing greenish liquid formed in the chamber. He gently took the glass, sniffed it a little, and took a little sip. Carter found the beverage to have a sweet taste, but nothing he would particularly object to. He soon drank the whole glass down, stored the empty cup into the chamber, and closed the safe door.

"Alcohol, sir?" Reno inquired.

Carter shook his head. "Serum TK427. Something Dr. Mitchell recommended I drink once in a while when things are getting stressful."

Reno nodded. "If I knew that, I would have asked for-" His sudden quietness prompted Carter to take notice, but Reno's concern faded when a smile appeared. "I'm in!"

Carter approached the computer console and watched as various satellite pictures (the images were displayed in four shades of green due to Lightspeed's older satellite systems still in orbit) were on display in a slideshow. The images showed nothing more than a black mass behind a starfield and close-up images would should various rocky spikes. Carter's jaw dropped at the next image, which featured a beam of light cutting through a spherical object, most presumably a moon or planet.

Reno looked at the images with astonishment. "Whatever this 'Wraith' is, it's one powerful ass kicker."

Carter didn't register Reno's remark. He stared in awe at the bland yet disturbing images of a powerful threat to this planet. He couldn't find the words to describe the image he saw. After a minute of silence, Carter approached the keyboard typed in "Nukutal" as his next search term. Reno expected those files to be classified, but to their astonishment, only one file on the Nukutal was available and this was viewable to all levels. Even the rookie cadets could study these plans if they wanted to.

"Why would Lightspeed keep the Wraith files classified but not the bomb, Reno?" Carter asked.

Reno did not answer for a while, as he was studying the bomb plans. After a moment, he spoke with an ominous tone, "The bomb plans are pretty detailed, sir. I can't answer your question as to why."

Carter read some of the bomb details. There was a lot of information here that should be classified but for some reason isn't. "Reno, make me a copy on CD." he told his assistant, "I'm bringing some of this to the Rangers."

As Reno did so, Carter approached the safe and inserted a different keycode from the one he used earlier. Upon the last stroke, there was a short processing sound from the safe. When the sound stopped, the safe door opened, but the chamber behind was much larger in size. In the middle of the chamber was a wrist object that Carter was familiar with. He took the object out of the safe and mounted it onto his wrist.

"Your old morpher," Reno observed from the console. "Expecting to go into battle?"

Carter nodded. "You know I haven't used this thing in two years? Not since the Serpenterra mission, anyway. I wonder if it still works after all this time..."

---

"Recall all Quadrafighters back to the ship, we have to retreat."

At the command of the Machine King Aradon, the fledging battlecruiser, along with several Quadrafighters that have survived the encounter with a pirate cruiser just moments ago, slowly turned away from the Wraith planet-killer that was fast approaching their . Because of a ramming attack by one of the pirate fighters, the battlecruiser suffered heavy damage to their main engines and thus was unable to outrun the ship.

In the cockpit of one of the Quadrafighters, Andros looked ahead at the awesome size of the enemy. Their first encounter with this massive object, even at full operating capacity, had nearly resulted in the destruction of their vessel. The other Quadrafighters simply flew around to the side of the battlecruiser, but a couple were looking in the direction of the ship.

"Whatever you do, do not fire." Andros commanded to the other fighters through the comm, "we don't have the firepower."

Much to the surprise of Aradon (and the confusion of his two allies), the Wraith simply passed by the fleet without laying a single shot. In fact, the Wraith did not even bother to slow down. It was as if it did not notice the relatively small (and drastically weakened) Machine fleet. In the tactical station, Aradon watched the main viewer as it displayed the giant spiked vessel pass by them at intense speeds. Fortunately for them, none of the spikes were in the cruiser's path.

TJ looked on as the Wraith flew towards a blue sphere. "What is that planet over there?" he asked over the comm.

It took a moment before he heard a distorted Aradon over the comm. "It's a rogue planet," he said, "No life signs."

On the one hand, a sigh of relief. On the other hand, another planet was about to be destroyed.

---

Thomas Oliver stood in front of the structure, staring as if it was a ghost from the past.

In some ways, that's exactly what it might have been. The original home base of the original Power Rangers, destroyed once by means of an implosion device, but was soon restored and served as a entryway to the underground Power Chamber base. That base, along with this structure, was destroyed during the Turbo Rangers' battle with pirate queen Divatox and the ruins has been dormant all this time.

... or so everyone thought.

In front of him was the very structure thought to have been destroyed and never to return and yet here it is, just as it appeared ten years ago. Realizing he wasn't alone, he turned towards the two Silver Guardians. "You guys better regroup with the others," he ordered, although unsure of himself. "Form whatever strategy you can to find and stop the Varox."

"What about you?" Eric asked implicitly.

Thomas gave a sigh. "I have an old acquaintance to meet with... sort of."

The Silver Guardians nodded and took off, leaving Thomas alone before the massive Command Center, restored and reborn as a result of _Project Prodigy_, an experiment conceived by Zordon and initiated by William Cranston back in ninety-eight. Back then, nobody knew what Prodigy was even supposed to do because it took years for it to run its course. Thomas didn't care about the exact details, because the end result was standing before.

Shaking off the subtle nervousness that had enveloped him since coming here, Thomas made his way to the main entrance of the structure, which was opened. Thomas marched into the interior hall until he found his way into the main Command Center chamber. He was absolutely amazed by how much detail had gone into restoring every speck of light and matter to the way it was before. Thomas never did find out if this place had been around during their tenure as Zeo Rangers ever since he noticed the black wall that blocked the entryway to that room, even though the Power Chamber was much better equipped to deal with the invading Machine Empire. that last thought brought a slight chuckle to Thomas. It was hard to believe that there is almost nothing left of the regime, all thanks to something known as the Wraith.

Shaking his head, Thomas approached one of the consoles, specifically the one with the Numeral Pad. Keying in the numbers 5 - 3 - 9 - 4 and following that combination with a Pound key, Thomas turned to see a door of light emanate from the other side of the room.

_Glad to see this still works_, Thomas thought to himself as he approached the door of light and took the first step.

---

The Space Rangers and Aradon observe the Wraith as it approached a nearby rogue planet, presumably its next target. Left without options on how to stop it, they could do nothing but watch as the Wraith fired several of their pulse weapons at the planet. However, they've noticed that the flurry of energy projectiles from the Wraith did not destroy the planet. As they learned before, the Wraith usually destroyed worlds using a super-laser... so why the weapons fire on the planet?

For three straight minutes, they've watched the Wraith fire various projectiles at the same rogue planet. Finally, the barrage of projectiles stopped and a blue beam emanated from the Wraith to the rogue world. After several seconds, the planet was consumed in an aura of blinding light and what remained were several asteroids. The Wraith soon veered away from the rumble.

In the tactical room of the battlecruiser, there was silence, save for the background noise of engine humming and computer bleeps. Andros displayed a sense of confusion through his facial expressions, while TJ scratched his head. Aradon stared blankly at the viewer before approaching a console and pressing a few buttons. The viewer showed the Wraith and its barrage on the planet. Another button click and it showed the Wraith using its super laser to destroy the rogue planet. Another button click and it showed the asteroid field.

Turning to his crew, Aradon stared for a moment and spoke softly, "I believe we've learned something about our enemy."

TJ caught on to what the Machine king meant. "The laser isn't strong enough on its own, so the Wraith uses its weapons to cut the planet down." TJ noticed nodding heads of the crowd, so he continued. "So we have to figure out how to use that to our advantage." The nodding heads stopped and now made faces filled with confusion. Silence filled the room until Andros spoke up.

"I have an idea," he said in a light but serious tone, "but we're going to need a very important piece of hardware."

To be continued...


	11. Part 11 of 14

POWER RANGERS: WRAITH (Formerly The Weapon) - Part 11 of 14  
Written by DTM666

Disclaimer: The author of this piece would like to state that 90 percent of the characters featured here are properties of BVS Entertainment Inc and not that of the author. 10 percent of the characters featured here are original creations of the author.  
Also, the author understands that this piece automatically negates events that occur any and all PR incarnations that occur after Power Rangers Wild Force; hence no Dino Thunder or Ninja Storm is featured here and hence Tommy is not a doctor of anything. This is an AU, so to speak. Just thought we should be clear on that.

I was supposed to upload this yesterday, but time conflictions got in the way. Anyway, if all goes well, expect Part 12 to be posted later tonight.

---

After two hours of space flight, the Aradon-led Machine Armada returned to KO-35 orbit, where the Orbital Shipyard was hard at work with repairing and refitting the Astro Megaship. It took some time before Andros was able to convince Kerovan security forces that the armada was on their side and thus the Armade was able to keep orbit. With everything going well with the armada, Andros and TJ took a shuttle to the shipyard.

"How's the repair work going?" Andros asked casually.

Zhane flashed the usual smile he was known for. "We're almost ready to go considering the time they had to get this done. Better shield system, better armor plating. Entire power network was replaced in half an hour. You can't beat service like that."

"Good," said Andros, who sounded more serious, "we're going to need a little extra something." As he spoke, TJ walked into the room, but the Kerovans did not take notice.

"What do you mean?" Zhane asked confusedly.

Finally noticing the other Ranger, Andros turned to him and asked, "Remember the Serpenterra salvage operation from two years ago?"

"Yeah" was TJ's only answer.

"Do you know if the laser was found?" Andros asked.

TJ did not understand at first, but soon realized what he was asking. "Last time I checked, it looked to be in one piece," he explained in a confused tone, "but nobody ever tested it to see if it worked."

Andros turned back to Zhane, who seemed to understand what his long-time friend was saying. "Zhane, see if you can get the weapon and load onto the shuttle compartment. Use whatever power relays you need."

"You want to try the Serpent Laser on that thing?" Zhane's smile returned, wider than before. "That's GENIUS! I'll let them know right away!"

Andros sighed and ran down the deck, prompting TJ to ask, "Hey, where're you going?"

Andros called back. "I gotta make a call to Mike."

---

The chamber of light seemed familiar to Thomas. The control panels and the optical read-outs were the same as before. Although he had been unconscious most of the time, Thomas recognized this place as the hidden laboratory where Zordon and Alpha Five had experimented with a new Power Ranger, the White Ranger. Aside from the fact that it had collected dust over years of inactivity, it is relatively unchanged, as if he had been there for the first time. Clearly, the multiple destructions of the structure above did not affect this chamber at all.

Thomas decided to due away with the nostalgic feelings for the moment and concentrate on the matter at hand. Beside the lab table were several file folders. _Curious_, Thomas thought to himself, _I had never known Zordon to be keeping notes on pape_r. Grabbing the stack of files, Thomas opened one of them and studied the various documentation. He chuckled to himself; the first folder contained documentation of the White Ranger project. Another folder contained implemented features into the White Ranger project. Everything seemed ordinary; typical schematics, abilities, and other...

Thomas backtracked through the documents he scanned through until he found the one marked "GS-01." Taking the document from the folder, he scanned through the document, looking at handwritten words and diagrams. When Zordon briefed Thomas long ago, he explained that the White Ranger was supposed to be more powerful than any other Ranger, but he hadn't mentioned anything about a "GS-01" of any kind. Thomas sat on a chair near the lab desk and began to read the document with interest and curiosity. Although the information is rather outdated, it could hold something worth mentioning.

For several pages, the document was simple properties of energy absorption through a process unfamiliar to Thomas. The next part of the document had an interesting theory about an ability to gather the absorbed energy with a Ranger and use it to release a discharge of energy that would devastate everything in its path. This did not make sense to Thomas; _why would Zordon implement a destructive power into the White Ranger matrix?_

Another curious dilemma struck Thomas in the third and final part of the document. In the final three pages were schematics of the White Ranger, except the schematics included components not installed in the final product. In fact, Thomas' eyes widened when he read that the additional components could not be found and therefore, compensations had to be made. Thomas sat there confused. Missing components? Compensations? What does all this mean?

Thomas' study into the White Ranger files intrigued him enough as to spend an hour through the notes. Noticing how much time has past, he set aside the files and approached a computer console. He keyed up the word "Wraith" and the screen displayed over two hundred different entries concerning the term "Wraith." At first Thomas thought his search parameter was too general, but then remembered former Ranger William Cranston saying that the database "knows" what to look for. Thomas also remember Billy explicating telling him not to ask, so he didn't.

The files concerning the Wraith proved to be more useful than Thomas had hoped for. Most of the Wraith's functionality was clearly explained, including the less-than-powerful laser beam that only destroys ravaged planets while causing healthy worlds to become wastelands. In other words, Thomas concluded, a bigger Serpenterra with more guns. Other files has incidents and known encounters with the planet-killer.

One particular file was especially interesting. HISTORY OF THE WRAITH was the header. Thomas selected the file and read an extensive essay. He learned that the Wraith was a weapon built by an ancient civilization, designed to destroy their enemies effortlessly. Most of this information seemed trivial, except for one portion. Thomas had to read and re-read this segment several times, and each time he read it, he couldn't believe it.

**During the days of the Repulsa wars, Eltarian troops commanded by Zordon uncovered and used the Wraith to destroy most of Rita Repulsa's border worlds before abandoning the weapon. However, they did not shut down the Wraith and thus the ship went about its original program; destroying uninhabitable worlds high on resources.**

_I can't believe it_, Thomas mouthed. _Zordon had a part in this thing's rampage?_

Desperate to search for more, Thomas skimmed through Zordon's journals that dated to the period in question. They confirmed his fears about Zordon's involvement:

**This weapon seemed like the perfect foil to take out the threat of Rita and end the Repulsa regime. However, it was difficult to control, so I set its mission parameters to go out and destroy rogue worlds that were under Rita's control.**

Thomas didn't understand that particular statement and continued down towards the entry's final lines:

**The Wraith did not receive any orders to halt its assault and in fact, none of us, not even myself, had thought much about it. By the time we realized our error, the Wraith was gone. Its destination... unknown. Its purpose... mindless destruction. Its target is simply rogue worlds... but I have no doubt that it will stop there. It is a weapon capable of defending itself and will stop at nothing to complete its mission.**

Although Andros had told him in his recent email that the Wraith was still pursuing rogue worlds, the thought of Earth being a potential target certainly cross Thomas' mind. However, with Andros taking care of that problem, he needn't worry. So Thomas concentrated on the White Ranger project files, knowing that something within the files could possibly be adapted to the Zeo Ranger powers and could be of help to their conflict against the Varox threat.

---

Jason wanted to wait for Thomas to get back, even after Wes said he'll be a little late. But time is of the essence. He stood in front of a small crowd, consisting of the two Silver Guardians, Carter Grayson, Blue Lightspeed Ranger Chad Lee, and Cole Evans.

"Okay, you obviously know about the Mariner Bay incident and its cause of the widespread destruction." When everyone nodded in affirmation, Jason continued, "Then you probably also know that there is a second Varox running around with a government-built weapon known as the Nukutal, which is a dangerous weapon in the wrong hands." Jason gestured to Carter, who clicked on a remote towards a video monitor. The monitor flashed open and displayed an image of wasteland as Jason proceeded with his commentary, "Thanks to Carter's acquired information from the Lightspeed database, we've managed to use the scanner to search for the device, which is found here."

Carter stood and approached the monitor image of the wasteland. "The Varox hunter is hiding in one of these caverns, but they're all interconnected with each other, so it could lead to a central hub."

"That hub," Jason decreed, "is where we'll find our bomb."

Jason pointed to Wes, who stood and approached the console and pressed a few buttons. The wasteland image faded to a schematic of an armored van. "This is an experimental battle van," Wes began enthusiastically, "it's got missiles, lasers, mines, armor, rockets, the works." His tone adopted some seriousness. "We'll be riding this through the wasteland, in case our friend has some surprises for us."

"I've already made a post to send two squads of troops to meet us as the rendezvous point." Eric added, "they'll take a while, but they'll be there. I've tried to contact"

All the rangers voiced their approval except for Cole, who merely nodded. Noticing the rookie ranger, Jason approached him and laid a hand on the boy's shoulder. "You're coming along too, Cole," he told him, "We need all the help we can get, powers or not. Besides, I got a special mission for you."

Cole raised an eyebrow, wondering what help he could be without a set of powers. Jason nodded at the others to get ready, who promptly stood from their chairs and checked over their gear. Jason pulled out a silver object that resembled a wristwatch. Cole recognized it as a communicator, having seen Jason use it a couple times before. Jason handed the silver communicator to Cole, who accepted without argument.

"This communicator has been specially designed to teleport you close to the Nukutal's location," Jason briefed, "Once there, you'll have to deactivate it before the Varox hunter can use it. No doubt, the Varox won't expect an ex-Ranger to sneak in his lair, but nonetheless watch your ass. Who knows what he's got there?" He paused for a moment to let Cole digest what the Red Ranger told him. "Is everything clear to you?"

Cole looked up to the veteran Red Ranger and smiled. "No problem. Thanks, Jason."

Jason let out a wink. "Get ready, kid."

Cole nodded and ran out the door. As the others prepared for battle, Jason made one last attempt to contact Thomas in the Command Center before leaving. Unfortunately, the comm signal could not get through to either Thomas' cell phone nor his communicator. So Jason took a piece of paper, scribbled some words, and ran out the door after leaving the note on the table.

The note read "Don't be late bro."

To be continued...


	12. Part 12 of 14

POWER RANGERS: WRAITH (Formerly The Weapon) - Part 12 of 14  
Written by DTM666

Disclaimer: The author of this piece would like to state that 90 percent of the characters featured here are properties of BVS Entertainment Inc and not that of the author. 10 percent of the characters featured here are original creations of the author.  
Also, the author understands that this piece automatically negates events that occur any and all PR incarnations that occur after Power Rangers Wild Force. Just thought we should be clear on that.

Here's Part 12. If all goes well, I'll have the next one up tomorrow.

---

"The Nukutal is ready to go." 

The rogue Varox bounty hunter sat in a chamber with a console connected to several red canisters. On the visual, he sees an armored battle van storming through a deserted wasteland and smiles. _They will come_, he thought, _and I will destroy them with one blast of this weapon._

The Varox looked on the viewer and saw that the target was within the blast range of the bomb. Grabbing his pulse rifle, he walked out the cavern and stood still, awaiting his visitors. 

--- 

Several hours have past since KO-35 mechanics have cleared the Megaship for departure. With new modifications and the installation of a new weapon, the Space Rangers were more than ready to take on the Wraith in a second confrontation. The GSA military, thanks to Fleet Admiral Mike Corbett, with whom Andros had gained contact with, managed to spare several ships; five Gladius ships and two Corsair ships. The Gladius-class vessel is similar in shape to the Megaship, except slightly smaller and more compact. The Corsair-class vessel can essentially be considered to be a flying battleship, complete with aircraft carrier. 

Andros oversaw final testing of the Megaship's new systems to ensure compatibility. When everything was set to go, he opened a comm link to the seven GSA cruisers and two Machine battlecruisers commanded by the Machine king Aradon. 

"This is it," Andros announced with a hint of nervousness, "we're going to pursue a seemingly invincible enemy and do whatever we can to make sure it does not become a threat to civilization. This is quite possibly the biggest threat since Serpenterra and this time, we're on our own. The other Power Rangers have trouble back home on Earth and can't help us out. 

"This is our only shot at taking this thing out," he continued, "if we don't win this fight, we won't be getting another shot. Chances are we may not survive the encounter, but if we don't, let's hope we take this thing with us. Good luck to all of us." 

On that final note, the small assault team proceeded to leave KO-35's orbit and seek out the Wraith planet-killer... 

--- 

As Wes Collins drove the armored battle-van through the wastelands, the other Rangers for this mission (Jason Lee Scott - original Red Ranger, Carter Grayson and Chad Lee - Red and Blue Lightspeed Rangers using the new morphers developed by Lightspeed, Eric Myers - Quantum Ranger, and Cole Evans, the only Ranger without a morpher) were looking tense. Not one of them broke the silence that was considered to be intensity. No word from Thomas Oliver or any of the others in the past hour. 

"Do you think Tom will get back in time?" the rookie asked. 

"He'll show up," Jason answered calmly, "he'll be a little late, but he'll show." He turned his head to see Carter in deep thought. "Something on your mind, Carter?"

Carter shook his head. "I just have this bad feeling." 

As if on cue, a hard impact shook the Rangers up. Wes tilted his head to the front view of the van to see a figure firing energy projectiles... it was the Varox hunter. The hunter continued his barrage of fire as the battle-van avoided any nearby explosions. Wes pushed a button which uncovered a control lever with a trigger. Eric took control of the lever and pulled the trigger, resulting in a barrage of missiles to launch from the top launcher of the battle-van. All the missiles managed to successfully take down the Varox, but not necessarily destroy him. Eric, somewhat shocked that the hunter was able to survive that attack, fired more missiles. This time, the Varox dodged the flurry of warheads and fired a concentrated beam at the launcher, blowing it up instantly. 

In the battle-van, the other Rangers held on to the side bar. "Stop the van!" Jason called out to Wes. "I'm going out there!" 

Eric got up from his seat and clutched his helmet. Knowing what he had to do, Cole pulled out the wrist communicator Jason handed him and pushed the button. He soon flashed red and disappeared. 

The Varox started at the approaching vehicle and smugly grinned behind his mask. He crossed both his arms and started to emanate a slight red glow around him. When the battle-van reached range, the Varox thrust his arms forward and let out a blue fireball at the vehicle. The fireball managed to impact the hood of the van, smoke coming out of it and eventually the vehicle exploded. The Varox stared into the flaming wreckage for a moment before walking into Wes' flying kick.

---

The strike force lead by Andros and Aradon have managed to find their target. On the bridge of the Megaship, Andros sat in the command chair and observed the massive object. Conveniently enough, the Wraith had just destroyed another lifeless rogue world. Its next target was another rogue world nearby, only this one has life forms. Despite major refit, the ship is still no match for the Wraith. This time, however, they would not go at it alone. When Aradon's signal was received by all vessels, Andros ordered the Megaship into attack mode.

"It's time to end this," the Kerovan declared, "Let's do it!"

The strike force broke off into small groups, with the Megaship and battlecruisers firing laser weapons at a distance. Three Gladius ships provided cover fire while the other two attacked the surface. The Corsairs, the more heavily armed ships, dropped several nukes onto the surface of the Wraith. While the nukes did explode upon impact, they did not do much damage. The lead Corsair broke formation and proceeded to fire flak at a nearby spike, but soon fell into a storm of pulse weapons. Fortunately, a Gladius attacked the tower with its own weapons and attracted the spike's fire, allowing the Corsair to launch several missiles at the base. After a while, the base was destroyed and the spike soon floated away. 

The Megaship managed to avoid the onslaught of projectile fire, casually firing torpedoes at the spikes to attract fire. On the bridge of the lead cruiser, Aradon observed the Megaship under fire. Now was his ships' chance to strike. 

"Contact the other cruiser," Aradon commanded to a nearby Cog, "tell them to switch to polaron weapons and destroy whatever towers you can." 

The second battlecruiser approached a nearby tower and fired its weapons; brilliant white beams and torpedoes flew and impacted the spike's base, eventually obliterating it. Aradon's ship aimed their weapons on the surface, but did not dent them. 

"It seems we are making some progress," Aradon declared over the comm, but soon observed on his viewer that from the flaming pit, another spike emerged from under the second battlecruiser, impaling the ship with little effort. "I spoke too soon. The Wraith's regenerative properties are much stronger than anticipated." 

Andros nodded as he heard Aradon's comments. "Then it's time we did something about it." He turned to TJ, who was manning the weapons station. "Is the laser ready?"

"Ready and locked on target," TJ replied confidently, "Just say the word."

As the Megaship flew into position, the two Corsairs managed to wipe out four more spikes. The lead Corsair would continue to launch nukes onto the surface of the ship. The first several nukes did not dent the surface. The last two nukes, however, managed to rupture the surface to the point where flames began to spit out, taking out the unfortunate Corsair that had caused its destruction. 

Zhane checked the scanners for progress. "We've lost two ships," he exclaimed, "but we've managed some damage." 

Andros didn't pay much attention, not when he had to evade more projectiles. Even with a faster engine, the Megaship was still getting nailed by various weapons, but fortunately, unlike the first encounter, they won't spell a quick demise. Meanwhile, the two Corsair pair dropped more nukes onto the crack and fired several missiles at more spikes, causing a huge eruption of flames that decimated one Corsair and impacted the other, spiraling out of control and to colliding with a nearby Gladius, destroying both ships. 

Andros flew the Megaship past the spikes to the Wraith's main laser port, skillfully avoiding the majority of the pulse shots. He had to admit that the new thrusters work rather nicely for a quick job. He set aside his impressed thoughts and concentrated on getting the laser, which seemed like it was starting to build up energy. A nearby Gladius swung under the Megaship with blazing speed, drawing the fire of the pulse weapons and allowing the Megaship to continue towards the laser port, which was practically the size of a small starbase. Brushing the sweat off his brow, Andros positioned the Megaship in front of the Wraith's massive laser and pointed to TJ, who promptly pressed several buttons and inputted various commands to the tactical computer. 

The housing that normally held the Megashuttle opened up to reveal a huge cannon with several mini-spikes sticking out of the top and bottom. On the bridge, TJ turned to Andros and gave him the thumbs up. 

"Okay," TJ stated, "the cannon will use up power from the batteries that were designed for it. We can hold a beam for 20 seconds before it shuts down." 

"Twenty seconds?" Zhane asked with concern, "what if the Wraith lasts longer than that?" 

Andros shrugged the notion and answered quaintly, "We'll just have to hope it doesn't." 

Meanwhile Aradon's vessel launched the remaining few Quadrafighters it has to attack the damaged towers and take them down. Because of their relative size and mass, the fighters were able to easily dodge and avoid the pulse weapons, causing them to damage the Wraith itself. Progress was being made, but not by much... 

The laser port of the Wraith - the one weapon that is used to destroy a weakened planet - makes the Megaship seem pea-sized, but that would not deter Andros from his plan. In the bridge, tension mounted as the Space Rangers waited for their friend to give the order to fire a weapon salvaged from a previous joint mission. He checked on the other ships; drawing the other weapons' fire while desperately trying to damage the Wraith by any means possible. An estimated count of a hundred super-nukes were deployed and impacted, but not much significant damage had been done. But even if the Wraith is not destroyed, its laser must be taken out before it destroys another world. 

"Fire the weapon." 

The Wraith fired its own laser that is relatively half the size of the blast port just as the Megaship fired the Serpenterra Laser. The two lasers clashed with each other, neither one giving ground to the other. _However, the Megaship has a limited power source for its laser,_ Andros surmised, _while the Wraith can apparently keep up with its own, so it's a game who can outlast the other..._

Meanwhile, Aradon's flagship witnessed the destruction of another Gladius vessel caused by enemy projectile fire. The king sat helpless as the little invasion fleet was suddenly taken down by the awesome power of the Weapon. He noticed on one of the viewers that the Megaship was struggling to keep the Wraith's laser from destroying another world by firing its own laser, but Aradon knew that the Rangers could not keep up for long. 

"Report on the battle!" Aradon ordered. He was not expecting any gratifying news. 

"All seven GSA vessels have been destroyed," the Cog lieutenant reported with a grim, robotic tone, "our sister ship is also on the verge of destruction. We have managed to cause twenty-five percent of damage to the enemy, but not enough to stop it entirely." 

The other Machine vessel was clearly catching flames. It managed to fire several of its polaron torpedoes which managed to take out a small chunk of the Wraith's surface, but the small chunk managed to collide with one of the ship's wings, causing it to spiral out of control until crashing onto a spike, blowing that up. Aradon watched the destruction of his second vessel with depression and hopelessness. He didn't know what to do. His battlecruiser was now the sole remaining bit of Machine Empire left in the universe. In his mind, he was contemplating on the next move; should he stay and assist the Rangers in the fight against the Wraith, risking his empire for a cause? Or should he retreat and rebuild his empire? When Aradon stood, he realized that there was only one answer to his dilemma. 

"Navigator," he said in a somewhat sad tone, "approach the Megaship." 

--- 

Wes managed to dodge projectiles from the Varox bounty hunter's pulse rifle. He fired a couple of shots with his Chrono Blaster at his enemy but the Varox simply shrugged off the attacks and unleashed a barrage of missiles that knocked Wes down. Eric jumped in and delivered several quick roundhouse kicks and uppercuts, all of which the Varox either blocked or dodged. A mistake by Eric allowed the Varox to connect with a fierce clothesline, sending the Quantum flying. 

The Varox laughed at his two adversaries. "Is this all you have?" he taunted, "That's pathetic!" 

This brought in Jason, who managed to surprise the Varox with a slash to the shoulder-plate from his power sword. The Varox turned to the veteran and threw a jab, which Jason dodges with quickness and counters with a hard right to the stomach that pushes the Varox back a step. Jason unleashed a quick sidekick to the Varox's stomach to knock down the bounty hunter. The Varox slowly got back to his feet, but would be stomped on by Carter. The Varox fired a charged bolt at the Lightspeed commander, but Carter dodged the attack and fired a bolt from his V-Lance. The bolt stunned the Varox momentarily. 

The four Rangers grouped together and faced their stunned adversary, who pulled out a remote device. Carter recognized it as the launch control for the suicide bomb. The Rangers stopped and watched in shock as the Varox positioned his thumb on the red button of the device. 

"I see you know what I hold in my hand," the hunter said in a sinister tone, with a smug look behind his mask. "You acknowledge the destructive power that I possess." The Rangers did not move a muscle. The Varox pushed the button and... 

To be continued...


	13. Part 13 of 14

POWER RANGERS: WRAITH (Formerly The Weapon) - Part 13 of 14  
Written by DTM666

Disclaimer: The author of this piece would like to state that 90 percent of the characters featured here are properties of BVS Entertainment Inc and not that of the author. 10 percent of the characters featured here are original creations of the author.  
Also, the author understands that this piece automatically negates events that occur any and all PR incarnations that occur after Power Rangers Wild Force; hence no Dino Thunder or Ninja Storm is featured here and hence Tommy is not a doctor of anything. This is an AU, so to speak. Just thought we should be clear on that.

So here's the second-to-last chapter of this revised repost. Pending time, tomorrow may see the final chapter and this can hit the books. Leave behind a comment or two when you're done reading it.

---

The four Red Rangers grouped together and faced their stunned adversary, who pulled out a remote device. Carter recognized it as the launch control for the suicide bomb. The Rangers stopped and watched in shock as the Varox positioned his thumb on the red button of the device. 

"I see you know what I hold in my hand," the hunter said in a sinister tone, with a smug look behind his mask. "You acknowledge the destructive power that I possess." The Rangers did not move a muscle. The Varox pushed the button and... 

... and nothing. The Varox pushed the button on the controller again and still nothing. Behind their masks, the Red Rangers let out a collective sigh of relief, as they watched the Varox bounty hunter frantically pushing the button numerous times for something... anything to happen. But nothing did. The Varox let out a rageful scream, leaving him open to the flurry of energy blasts shot from the Rangers' respective blasters. This move stunned the Varox and knocked him down, with one of the beams dissipating the controller as well. 

The veteran approached the fallen Varox slowly. "Looks like your plan didn't work out as expected," he called out triumphantly. "Surrender now while you have the chance." 

"NEVER!" the hunter screamed. Jason soon felt a forceful blow of a Varox side kick that caused great pain to his right arm. Carter jumped in with his lance weapon, but the Varox took down the Lightspeed Red Ranger with a green projectile. This left Wes and Eric to fight the Varox on an even playing field.

Eric and Wes took turns in attacking the Varox with various kicks and uppercuts, all of which the Varox blocked or dodged. Whenever one Ranger got knocked down, the other would come in and continue his barrage of attacks. Carter and Chad leapt into action and landed flying kicks on the back of the Varox hunter. The two Lightspeeders crossed their V-Lances together and fired an energy discharge that electrocuted the Varox. Carter rushed towards the Varox to attempt the finishing blow, but the Varox managed to snap out of his delirium and pull out a hand blaster. By the time Carter noticed the weapon, it was too late. He soon felt the immense pain caused by a blaster shot to the chest. The Varox charged at the fallen Ranger and gave a quick, fiercesome kick to the groin. Carter now cried in pain and agony, holding his sensitives as the Varox stared down. 

"You're pathetic." he taunted unceremoniously. "I fought Putty Patrollers that were more tough than you are. You're a joke." 

As Carter moaned in pain, the Varox pulled out his sword and turned 180 degrees with the sword extended, seeing sparks fly followed by an audible "argh". He looked down at the fallen Q-Ranger and noticed the blood flowing from his suit. Behind his mask, the Varox grinned. He could smell the blood of his enemy... and saw victory within his grasp. 

"YOU!" 

The Varox tilted his head back and forth, looking for the one who called out. He saw nobody but the fallen Rangers. "OVER HERE!" the voice called again. No one around, the hunter thought. Now annoyed, the Varox fired shots everywhere, hitting nothing in particular. 

"SHOW YOURSELF, COWARD!" the hunter roared. He soon heard a sound and turned to see another Red Ranger. This one in particular, the Varox hunter did recognized. He raised his arms and positioned them in a boxing stance. The hunter grinned, although the other Ranger could not notice it. "So," the Varox spoke, "you are still alive." 

_Still alive?_ Thomas thought. _What does he mean?_

"When last we fought," the hunter continued in a quiet tone, "you and your fellow Rangers defeated me... thwarted my attempt in assassinating the Triforian prince." 

Thomas did not answer, either because he did not want to or because he could not answer. Instead, he slowly walked towards the hunter in a steady pace as he continued to taunt him... remind him of a past encounter. He blocked the words from his mind and focus on his gestures. Noticing that the Varox was about to pull out a weapon, Thomas pulled out his own Zeo Blaster and fired a couple of rounds at the Varox, who effortlessly blocked the oncoming projectiles. The hunter leaped towards the Ranger. Perfect, thought Thomas, just as I had hoped for. 

Red Zeo waited until the Varox was just above, at which point he leaped straight up and landed an uppercut across the hunter's face. Both managed to land on their feet, with the Varox slightly stunned and almost losing his footing. He fired three more projectiles at Red Zeo, but Thomas managed to side step each one. He ran and switched to a sliding movement which swept the Varox off his feet and on his rear end. Thomas spiraled away from the hunter, firing occasional bursts from his blaster, which the Varox once again blocked expertly. 

"Your weapon is no match for me!" the Varox taunted. "I am better than before!" 

The momentary distraction gave Eric Meyers the opening he needed. Pulling out his Quantum Defender, he fired a charged bolt of energy at the Varox's back. Sparks and slight bits of metal burst from the Varox as he screamed in pain. He turned to see the culprit, who fired another burst at him. The Varox blocked the shot, but his wrist pads were damaged in doing so and slipped off. The Varox's taunting words were replaced with cries of agony and pain. Soon agony turned to anger as the hunter fired a wave of bolts, damaging the Quantum Ranger's armor and stunning him momentarily. The Varox turned and saw Chad Lee run towards him, but soon the Ranger was kicked away by the Varox. 

Suddenly, the Varox felt a slight shock. He didn't feel much pain, but he lost most sensation of his limbs. When he lowered his head, he noticed there was a sharp pointy piece of metal impaled through his chest. The Varox turned to see the Red Zeo Ranger holding the sword.

---

TJ was desperately trying to balance the power feed between the batteries and the Serpenterra Laser, but the laser was simply taking too much out of the ship. The laser clash between the Wraith and the Megaship had lasted over two minutes with virtually no give. After boosting extra power from the auxiliary ports, the console exploded, sending TJ flying across the bridge. Zhane ran to check on the Terran. 

"I'm okay." TJ yelled, trying to be heard over the loud noise caused by the laser, "but I can't control the power from here!" He turned to Andros. "We need to get out of here!" 

Andros observed the viewer. The Serpenterra laser was indeed dying out and the Wraith's more powerful laser is beating them. Zhane observed the power regulators screens, where they showed various indicators in red. "The batteries are overloaded!" he called out, "If we don't shut the laser down, the ship is going to blow up!" 

TJ shook his head. "And if we shut the laser down, the ship is gone anyway!" He tilted his head towards the viewer. TJ's panicked look was quickly replaced with that of shock and angst. He anxiously pointed his finger to the viewer. "What the hell is that?!" 

The Rangers turned towards the viewer and noticed Aradon's battlecruiser, slowly but surely approaching the Wraith's laser. The battlecruiser was attracting the fire of the Wraith's various turrets... or rather, the ones that are still functioning. 

On the bridge of the cruiser, Aradon stared at the lightshow caused by the two colliding lasers. He stared at the small speck that is the Astro Megaship, desperately struggling to keep its ground but is nearing defeat. Aradon held his hands together with his elbows placed on his chair's arm supports. He stared for a full minute and motioned towards the Cog navigator, who nodded slowly and programmed the ship for a collision course. 

The battlecruiser started its approach to the Wraith's main laser. Various projectiles were fired in order to keep the ship away, but it kept on going despite direct hits to weapons and other vital components. The cruiser positioned itself to fly against the force of the Wraith's laser. It was now close enough to the main port, but not necessarily touching it or making any attempt to crash into it. 

"What is Aradon doing?!" Andros cried as he saw the battlecruiser park itself above the laser. 

Debris and sparks flying about the bridge, Aradon stared down at a red button sticking out of the palm of his right hand. He stared at it. He contemplated and looked back at the history of the Machine Empire. Its corrupted rulers and its lost wars brought about a black cloud to a society that the creators hoped would be the pride of the universe. Aradon looked one last time at the deadly beam firing towards the little ship. It cannot keep up with the attack much longer.

With little hesitation, Aradon pushed the Red Button. The room around him suddenly fell apart as explosions ripped apart wall panels and hull platings. Back on the Megaship's bridge, the three Rangers looked on as they saw the massive explosion of what was once Aradon's starship. The Space Rangers saw the remaining hulk of the ship explode upon impact with the laser port of the Wraith. The explosion caused the Wraith to cease its devastating fire and the red-plated laser turret shattered into several pieces, leaving the Wraith vulnerable to attack. However, despite its primary weapon having been destroyed, the Wraith was still going strong and everyone aboard the lone Astro Megaship knew that like the Wraith's other systems, it wouldn't be long before the Weapon regenerated. 

"TJ," Andros asked stunned, "is the laser still good?" 

TJ shrugged his shoulders, dejected. "Circuits are all fried. It's done f-" TJ was interrupted when he noticed the barely-function scanners beeping frantically. "New energy readings all over."

"What's going on?" Andros asked, "What the frell's happening?"

On the screen, it was evident as to what happened. Around the Wraith jumped in a multitude of old-style skybases, space cruisers, and dreadnoughts. TJ checked the scanners and confirmed well over two-hundred Machine vessels had appeared to assist the Emperor and his allies to confront this powerful enemy that had robbed their mighty Empire of their homeworld. Right away, the Wraith's defenses came into play, sporadically firing energy bolts at the various vessels, but bolts were hailing space when a collective thousand Quadra-fighters launched from the various ships, using its polaron weapons as distractions for the targeting systems while the main cruisers fired their more powerful weapons.

"Son of a robo-bitch," TJ mused, "He had a back-up plan all this time."

Agreeing with TJ's assessment, Andros looked on as the various Machine ships laid out their assault. He couldn't hardly believe what was going on. At this point, he didn't care. This was their chance to finish this thing before it has a chance to strike back.

"TJ, dump the dead laser," he ordered, "Restore whatever power's there to shields and weapons. It's time to finish this once and for all."

---

With one final strike, Red Zeo stabbed the Varox with his sword through the back, deep enough that the blade bursts out from the chest. He pulled the blade from the defeated adversary who did nothing but laugh despite his predicament. His laughter lasted until his body crashed onto the dirt. The threat was far from over. Thomas saw the body glowing a faint blue, realizing that he may have inadvertently activated his nuclear device. 

Chad sees the buildup of energy caused by the Varox corpse, just like before. Chad knew what would come next and he knows that this blast was something he would not survive. Thomas stands there staring at the glowing corpse. In a quick reaction as the Varox showed signs of exploding, Thomas thrust his arms in a cross position and cried out a phrase that couldn't be made out. What followed was a bright light and what would follow, just as it did the first time around... didn't happen. Within an aura of light, a silhouette of black is seen, sucking in the light. The light continue to suck into the silhouette as it grows red bit by bit. 

Thomas screamed in agony, his body unable to bear the overwhelming pain despite its morphed state. Through his eyes, he saw nothing but blazing white light and slight streaks of red. He heard loud screeching that caused his ears to bleed. He started to cry, but instead of clear tears, they were blood red. His vision was soon blurry and nothing but red was the only thing he could see. 

However, Thomas no longer saw a plain red crimson mist surround him. Instead, his mind was bombarded with images; some familiar, some not. It was hard for him to tell. He heard almost an infinite number of voices that he could hardly make out. The pain he was feeling made it very difficult to concentrate on what all this meant. His thoughts were sporadic. The one constant in his mind seemed to be that he believed he was going to die. With a great deal of effort, he managed to mutter a single word before the pain overwhelmed him. 

_Goodbye._

---

The other saw the enormous amount of light and flames being sucked into the glowing Zeo Ranger and promptly covered their eyes with their arms. A shockwave sent them to the ground and they wouldn't stare at the warrior. Thomas' body began to flicker between the Ranger suit and his civilian form. When he gathered most of the energy his body could take, he extended his arms upward and released another stream of white light, this one more intense than before. After a while, Thomas lost consciousness, but not before hearing a loud bang. 

After a moment, Jason weakly brought himself back on one knee, slowly before he gets up on both feet. He observes the surrounding area, expecting scorched earth. Instead, he sees the wasteland unscathed; not even a slight hint of a burn mark of crater is seen. Tilting his head towards the clear blue sky, he let out a sigh of relief. He soon ran towards his long-time friend, who was unconscious but still breathing. 

"You did it, bro." he told his friend.

---

The Megaship joined the other Machine Vessels in taking out the Wraith's weaponry. With the increased number of ships, the Wraith was slowly losing its weapons and the firepower it had displayed earlier was slowly dwindling. The Wraith's regeneration still came into play, as hull damage began to repair itself and the damaged spikes were detached. The hulk of these dead spikes collided with several quadrafighters. Andros believed a miracle was needed to kill this beast.

On cue, the bridge soon filled with bright light emanating from the viewer. The light dimmed and the Rangers observed a column of light which replaced the front of the Wraith. Zhane rushed to the navigation controls and veered the Megaship slowly away from the column of light. As they flew farther away, they noticed that the light beam was cutting the Wraith apart. Pieces of the planet-killer's surface began to float away, the towering weapon spikes broke apart and flames shot everywhere. Some of the smaller pieces of debris hit the Megaship, but did not cause much damage. The Machine fleet that had surrounded the former Wraith powered its engines and evaded the debris, distancing itself from the dying planet killer.

Zhane checked on the engine status and gave a thumbs up to Andros, who proceeded to push the accelerator to its maximum strength. The Megaship turned one-eighty degrees before picking up speed and flying away from the dying Wraith, which soon created a deafening explosion with a shockwave. The Megaship, at maximum cruising speed, was able to outrun the dissipating shockwave after a full minute. Andros slowed the ship down and slumped back on his chair. They had succeeded... albeit with a little help. 

TJ looked at the viewer one last time, perplexed. He turned to the Red Space Ranger. "Where the heck did that beam come from?" 

"It doesn't matter," Andros sighed in relief, "It's over now."

Andros turned his attention towards the navigation control and plotted a course for Earth so that they could check in with their leader. Andros switched the viewer to rear view, where the Machine fleet was converging together to jump back to their territory.

"What happens to them?" TJ asked.

"They'll have to rebuild from scratch," Andros said, "It'll be a long hard road and they'll run into obstacles, but if anyone can rebuild the Empire, it's Aradon. Let's go home."

---

Within the Varox's hidden chamber, the console was darkened. No blinking lights. No active monitors. Not even a operating generator. Nothing. It remained inactive. Cole Evans slumped to the ground, exhausted. He raised and studied the wire that pulled from the nearby generator, then took a glimpse at the machine. He cracked a wide smile and laugh at the absurdity of pulling the plug - literally - from the generator to deactivate the Varox's Trump card. With everything here safely turned off, Cole ran out from the cavern entrance to the outside desert. From a distance, he could see the gathering of Rangers huddled together. Cole burst into a sprint to join with the others, who were all checking on the unconscious Red Zeo Ranger.

"Is he alright?" the rookie Ranger asked.

Jason shook his head as he stroked Thomas' head. Cole stood up and saw the other Rangers slowly regaining their composures. Carter managed to pull himself up, but still felt some pain in his groin. Cole smiled at the Lightspeed Rescue commander's displeasure, but the smile faded before anyone could notice.

Demorphing, Carter pulled out his cell phone. Each step he took was rewarded with a stinging sensation that bothered him, but Carter continued walking towards the original Ranger.

"I'm calling for someone to pick us up." he told Jason, who was tending to his fallen friend. 

It took Carter Grayson all of seventy-five seconds to call for recovery teams. After finishing his call, the Lightspeed commander turned to Cole. "I'm guessing you pulled the plug on the bomb."

Cole let out a tired breath of confirmation, prompting Carter to place his hand on the young man's shoulder. "I hope he makes it, Carter."

"He will," Carter answered, "He will."

TO BE CONCLUDED... 


	14. Part 14 of 14 Finale

POWER RANGERS: WRAITH (Formerly The Weapon) - Part 14 of 14 (Finale)  
Written by DTM666

Disclaimer: The author of this piece would like to state that 90 percent of the characters featured here are properties of BVS Entertainment Inc and not that of the author. 10 percent of the characters featured here are original creations of the author.  
Also, the author understands that this piece automatically negates events that occur any and all PR incarnations that occur after Power Rangers Wild Force. Just thought we should be clear on that. 

This is the final chapter, conveniently posted on the same day that I finished The Weapon precisely one year ago. While there hasn't been much reviews, there has to be some who've read the thing, so just for that alone, thanks. 

--- 

The last thing he saw was a flash of blinding light. Before that, many images filled his senses. Some pleasant, others not so, but all caused extreme pain that he could not block out. Images of the past, images of his past, images of a past he has no knowledge of, images of possible futures, images of impossible futures... all of them distressing. 

Almost instantly, Thomas sat up from his bed. Streaks of sweat crawled down his skin, his heart beating quickly and heavily. Looking at his current surroundings, he realized that he was at home, in bed late at night. _It can't be a dream._ he thought conclusively. _It seemed too real._

He got up from his bed and slipped into a nearby green robe. He walked around the house slowly, looking at the house in general. He looked out the window and saw his pick-up truck in one piece. A little scratched on the passenger door, but in one piece nonetheless. There was another vehicle nearby; a red Beetle, parked on the driveway in front of the truck. Thomas wondered who left it there. 

"Tom?" 

A female voice... a familiar voice. Thomas quickly turned around and noticed light emanating from the kitchen. Within the light was a petite brunette wearing a black skirt and off-white top with chin-length hair. 

"Kimberly?" 

The girl nodded gently, her face showing a sense of relief. "Glad to see you remember." 

Thomas slumped for a moment, his hand firm over his forehead. Pain was still present, although the feeling of embarrassment slowly eliminated the anguish. 

"Feeling alright?" she asked. "You looked like crap." 

Thomas grunted. "Yeah. I'm okay." His mind wandered to other things and finally it came to him. "How long was I out?" 

"Jason and the guys brought you back from the military hospital down south around noon." Kim answered, noticing Thomas' confusion. "You were knocked into some trance for several hours." She pointed to a purple manila folder on the round wooden table. "The official report's over there if you want it." 

Those details seemed tempting to Thomas... a medical report trying to explain how someone could survive a seemingly inescapable death beam. He had to admit in the humorous possibilities. But for the moment, it didn't matter. What mattered now was that he was okay. 

"Thanks for being here," he said timidly. 

"Someone had to look after you," she assured him. She looked both ways and lowered her voice, almost whispering. "I promised Cole I wouldn't tell him, but he accidentally bumped his bike into your truck." 

"Don't worry," Thomas answered, smiling, "I won't go three-sixteen on him." 

Kim giggled. "Good, because I know how upset you can be when someone messes with your prized truck." She looked out at the truck. "I remember after the match for charity a couple years ago when you bought that truck." she recounted, "I always wondered where you get cash for buying all these cars, but then Kat told me you took up racing and they paid you good." 

Thomas smiled at the thought, but it didn't last long. He frowned and turned away. His face filled with sorrow and he struggled to keep them in. A teardrop formed on his right eye and separate to collide with the marble tile. He soon started to breathe heavily. 

"Are you alright?" Kim asked nervously. 

Thomas shook his head slowly. "This whole thing." he said softly, a hint of guilt hanging on his every word. "I managed to survive this experience. This whole life-threatening ordeal." He paused to turn towards a small photograph sitting near by. "I managed to live on, but I couldn't save Kat." 

Kim stood there in shock. A long forgotten wound suddenly reopened. 

Katherine Hillard. The former Pink Zeo Ranger. Kimberly's successor. Thomas's would-be-fiancée. Shortly after the "passing of the torch" years ago, Kat's house was destroyed thanks to a detonation device, leaving behind a giant creator. While her body was never found, it was assumed she was killed in the blast. Unsurprisingly, Thomas blamed himself for not being able to figure out what happened to her. That's what pretty much drove him away from his friends. 

"Don't say that," Kim told him, desperately fighting to hold back any tears. "We never found out what happened to Kat. Hell, we still don't know. You can't blame yourself for something you've had no power over." She placed a hand on Thomas' arm. "The last thing Kat would want is for you to agonize over her death for the rest of your life." 

She held her grip of his arm, bringing a half-smile to Thomas' face. "You're right, Kim. It's just that stuff like this always open that wound. Sometimes I wonder why I didn't accept that deal Mercer offered me years ago. I always wonder why I get caught up in this shit." 

Kim said nothing. Instead she placed a finger over Thomas' lips. Thomas felt a slight chill, feeling a peculiar sensation that he hasn't sensed in a long time. Time seemed to have stopped, all background noise being silent in Thomas' mind. The next sensation came as a surprise, as her lips pressed against his and stayed there for a few seconds. They slowly parted, with Thomas still in the dark as to what just happened. 

"What was that for?" Thomas asked nervously. 

Kim grinned. "No reason, I promise." 

--- 

In his personal chambers, Aradon reviewed the various status reports coming in from most of the remaining fleets. He was pleased to learn that, despite the destruction of their homeworld, the Empire was strengthened by this event rather than crippled. Outside the viewport, Aradon could see the convergence of other colony ships and battle cruisers, joining with his own fleet to bring together an Empire shattered by civil wars and political power plays. The Machines will endure; of that, Aradon is certain. It just will take time. 

Time is the one thing Aradon has plenty of. 

--- 

"God it's good to be home," TJ cried out as soon as he set foot on the platform in the NASADA base on Earth, immediately kissing the ground that was God's Green Earth. 

It has taken the Megaship a couple hours at best to get here, and when the Megaship reached Earth orbit, it was a relief to see that the planet was still in one piece and that the Red Rangers took care of the Varox threat. The two Space Rangers, Andros and Zhane, walked out along with TJ and took in the sight of a spacebase with a city backdrop. 

"Thanks for your help, TJ," Andros complemented as he extended his right hand. 

"No problem," TJ said, accepting Andros' hand. "I'm glad I could help." 

TJ extended his hand towards Zhane and Zhane shook it. The blonde-haired Silver Ranger then turned to his partner in red. "Hey, we better get going, Andros. We still have to meet up with a convoy to bring Aradon to one of the command colonies. And you know Ashley's gonna blow a fuse again if you're home late." 

Andros' cheeks turned slightly red upon hearing her name. "She's been like that since we got engaged." 

TJ couldn't help but laugh. "Ah, the rigors of almost married life. May I never have to deal with it." 

"Ha ha," Andros gawked, tapping his fist onto the human's shoulder. "Anyway, Zhane's right. We gotta go." 

With that said, the two Kerovans walked towards the Megaship, leaving TJ alone to watch as his two friends head back home after a job well done. He turned away and headed towards the parking lot. He smiled as he approached a tall slender Asian woman leaning on the hood of his red Porsche. The woman, in her 30s, waved her hand gently as the Red Turbo Ranger approached her. 

"Hey, TJ," the girl greeted, "Everything went well?" 

TJ nodded, a huge grin forming on his face. "Yeah, Cassie. We saved the world. Again." 

"If only you would have called," she said, "I would have wanted to help anyway I could." 

TJ sighed. "I know, Cass. But we had help from unlikely sources. And we pulled through." 

--- 

Over the course of the day, Kim helped Thomas with the cleaning of the house, as well as some chores and grocery shopping. The past couple of days have been so time consuming and so intense that he has forgotten about the basic maintenance of his own abode above his secret command post. Of course, knowing Thomas' faulty memory, Kim could understand. By the end of the day, the two were sitting at the back porch, looking on as the sun set behind the grassfields. 

"Thanks," Thomas said softly. 

"For what?" 

"For being here." 

Kim sighed. "I did what I had to. You're my friend." 

"We used to be more than that." 

"Yeah," she replied, looking away, "I know." 

For a brief moment, there was silence. Thomas felt a little uncomfortable, but a brief sense of nostalgia overwhelmed the discomfort. Thomas sighed and took a sip of his water. 

"I haven't felt this way in a long time," he whispered. 

Kim nodded, "Me too. But don't take it the wrong way; it was only a one-time deal." 

Thomas groaned. "Aw man." 

Thomas got up from his porch and headed into the kitchen. "I really appreciate you staying with me," he called over the open window as he reached for something in the white fridge. "I haven't had much practice cooking anything resembling real food, so how do you feel about some eggs?" 

Kim took a moment before answering, "Scrambled, please." 

--- 

In his office, Carter Grayson stared at the blank computer screen, wondering about what to put into his official report. He glanced outside to the viewport, which showed construction crews hard at work to cleaning up the wreckage caused by the recent bomb. 

Taking of a sip of his tea, a special blend devised by Cole to help with the healing process, Carter began typing down the first words. He had to choose his words carefully in order to keep anything related to the Rangers out of the report. After two hours of writing, rewriting, and revising his official report, Carter read over the report and laughed. There were so many holes and misconceptions in his report that obviously he would get questioned by HQ. Nonetheless, Carter didn't really give a damn about HQ thought. 

All the bad press that Carter had feared were merely relegated to tabloid papers, where the story was basically ignored. The dark cloud that had loomed over Carter's brash move was extinguished when it was discovered that the people were more interested in the ultra-hyped wrestling pay-per-view that grossed a couple hundred dollars and bankrupted the wrestling company that produced it. 

_Forget it,_ he thought, _I've had enough excitement for one day._ He promptly clicked Delete and turned off his system, before leaving the office for home. 

--- 

Eric Meyers knocked hard on the wooden yellow door. His hands were sweaty and his neck felt tight, even though he was only wearing a red T-shirt with black vest. Maybe it was the roses he held firmly in his hands. Or maybe he was... no, he couldn't admit it to himself. Maybe he was _nervous_... Eric felt bad admitting that, but at least he didn't say it out loud or he'd never hear the end of it from Wes. When the door opened, a blonde-haired woman peeked out, wearing nothing but an elegant yellow robe. 

From across the street in the Silver Guardian hummer, Wes looked on as Eric shook before Taylor Earheart in an evening robe. Judging by Eric's posture and the laughing of the former Wild Ranger, he contained his laughter as best as he could. After several seconds of witnessing Eric making a complete ass of himself, Taylor stepped aside and Eric walked in, shutting the door behind him. 

"Way to go, Eric!" he said enthusiastically. "I knew you could do it, man!" 

The door opened again and Eric popped his head out briefly. "GET LOST, COLLINS!" he shouted before slamming the door again. Wes could do nothing but smile at his friend's fortunes and drove the hummer away. 

--- 

**Cole,**

**I'm writing (as in by hand, not by e-mail) to let you know that Tom's okay. To be honest, I had my doubts, but then again, he and I are getting way too old for this.**

**You were brave to tag along with us, considering you were the only one without Ranger powers. But I think there's something we can do to resolve that. Pass by Angel Grove sometime if you're interested. If not, forget I said anything.**

**Take care, rookie.  
Jason**

He read the letter again before folding the sheet into the envelope and inserting the letter into the mailbox. With that piece of business done, Jason Lee Scott turned and went to his custom motorcycle. He made one last look at the tall buildings behind him and smiled. Angel Grove, a small town at one point, has grown into a metropolis in its own right thanks to its distinguished reputation as the birthplace of the Power Rangers.

Content with his business, Jason slipped on a pair of sunglasses and rode towards the mountainside, where he would meet an old friend...

---

What had been a powerful weapon of destruction is now floating debris. Even after two hours, the cluttered pieces of rock and metal that had been the Wraith did not float away. In the middle of the debris lies a small purple orb, someone metallic and transparent. After a path was cleared, the orb flew past the debris and headed towards a star in space. Within the orb, one could see an aging sorceress sound asleep. In that sleep, she dreams of a universe ravaged by dark flames. She laughs devilishly as she watches the death and destruction that surrounds her. It is only a dream. 

Of course, all that could change soon... 

THE END?


End file.
